


Time To Come Home

by wordswordswords7



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: BAMF Stiles, Druid Stiles Stilinski, Europe, Gen, Lydia takes no ones shit, Magic Stiles, Minor Isaac Lahey/Malia Tate, Minor Scott McCall/Kira Yukimura, Post-Allison's Death, Post-Nogitsune, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Stiles has some shit to work out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-25 16:37:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6202819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordswordswords7/pseuds/wordswordswords7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To cope with Allison's death Scott needs people and Lydia needs control. But Stiles...Stiles needs space.</p><p>Unfortunately for his father and friends, space means Europe and three weeks ends up meaning two years. But what happens when life in Beacon Hills catches up with him even as far away as Prague? And will the pack be ready for a new Stiles, one who hasn't been idle in his travels?</p><p>Also, witches. Motherfucking witches...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hottie At The News Stand

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of the characters or narrative content sourced from the Teen Wolf TV show.
> 
>  
> 
> This story takes place immediately after the Nogitsune is defeated - all canon storylines thereafter do not apply.

 

**CHAPTER ONE**

* * *

 

 

He left when it all came to a close. After the Nogitsune had been purged from his body, after Allison and Aiden had been buried. He found himself sitting on his bed beside Lydia, both of them staring at the floor in silence and he just knew. He had to get away from Beacon Hills.

Not forever. Just for now.

Probably.

“Europe, I think,” he said and she just nodded. “I just need to not be _here_ for a while.”

The thought of going alone was daunting, but the thought of being around the people he’d hurt most was unbearable.

“Come back,” Lydia said softly. “Do what you need to do, but promise me you’ll come back.”

She grabbed his hand and squeezed it.

“I promise. Will you stay here?”

Here in the town where the memory of dead friends would haunt her.

She gave a little huff, like a hollow laugh. “I hadn’t thought of leaving.”

“Maybe you should. Even if it’s just to take a break.”

And they both knew he was probably right.

The Sherriff wasn’t happy about letting him go, but who was John kidding? A backpacking trip on another continent was probably safer than sticking around Beacon Hills. Not to mention it held a hint of normalcy that Stiles needed so badly. Kids did this sort of thing all the time. He had half a mind to hand in his vacation slip and join the boy.

But no. There were some things he couldn’t fix and so he made no plans at the station. Of course he fought it at first (it was his duty as a worried father) but his arguments were half hearted. He finally agreed to the trip on the condition that Stiles go after the school year ended. That plan lasted exactly one night of panicked nightmares before John went online and bought the plane ticket himself; one for the end of the week.

Scott took some convincing. And Stiles almost cancelled his plans to quell the guilt sitting in his chest for leaving him. Scott had lost his first love in the most permanent way possible. He needed his best friend, he needed Stiles – was adamant about that. It wasn’t until he really looked into the other boy’s eyes and saw the pain there that Scott realized that while he needed comfort, Stiles needed distance. And he had Kira. He had his mother. And there was such a thing as Skype, as Stiles reminded him.

So it was set. There was a plane ticket, essentials bought and packed, and Stiles’ savings consolidated and at the ready. A quiet, long and tense ride to the airport with his father ended in a tight embrace and threat of death should he forget to stay in regular contact. And then there was nothing but the sounds of engines and a toddler kicking the back of his seat.

He was gone.

  

* * *

  

Lydia was reading a book. The sun was warm on her face as she absently sipped at her coffee, focused on the words in front of her and totally not on the figure standing by the nearby newsstand, poring over a paper. And she was _definitely_ not checking out the tattoo that wrapped around his bicep and disappeared beneath his t-shirt, only to poke up by his neck again. Certainly not the area where his narrow waist met his legs in a perfectly pinchable…

“ _Stiles_?!” 

He turned and she was up out of her seat in seconds, wrapping her arms around his neck. There was a tense moment where she was lifted off her feet and his hold on her felt not altogether friendly. But the second he saw  her face, his own flashed with recognition and his hands became gentle as he set her on her feet.

“Lydia! What’re you –!”

“Oh my god, how are –?”

Stiles took a step back from her and they eyed each other with foolish grins spreading across their faces.

He looked so incredibly different and yet…he was still Stiles.

He had filled out quite nicely, though he was still tall and slim. Except now, well _now_ there were clearly defined muscles. Wrapped in tattoos. Lydia cleared her throat, suddenly flushed. Several tattoos actually, all over the place. And there were scars, she saw. They would definitely be having a chat about the one that split his left brow in two. And the ones that looked like small crop circles burned along his forearm. She was quickly filled with worry. What had he been _doing_ to himself?

            “What’re you doing in Prague?” he asked, interrupting her thoughts.

           She took his hand and led him to the table she’d been sitting at.

            “Vacation,” she replied primly as they sat, intent on not bombarding him with her concern. He was so changed from the last time she’d seen him. Less broken looking. There was still a sense of damage – tiredness – but he was grinning at her and it had been so long since he’d done that. “I could ask you the same thing. The last time I spoke to your dad he said you were in Ireland.”

He looked slightly taken aback by that and then very much guilty.

“I take it you haven’t been in Ireland,” she ventured with an arched brow.

He grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck, a familiar gesture that sent warmth spreading through her. God, she’d missed him!

“Well, I mean, I _was_ in Ireland…”

“ _Stiles_.”

It was a warning tone under which he shrank a little. “I _was_ ,” and then under his breath, “ _threemonthsago_ …”   

She glared at him until irritation clouded his features and he stiffened. “I didn’t realize this was an interrogation.”

There it was. The grin had slipped away and now she was seeing a bit more of what he’d left as. Ah, and here was her guilt at bringing it out in him. Well she wasn’t going to give into it. Her own defenses came up and she sat up straighter and shrugged one delicate shoulder. “I’m not the one lying here.”

A small part of her balked at the accusation. _Great_ , _Lydia_ , she thought, _you haven’t seen him in ages and you open with “bitch”_?

But as happy as she was to see him, apparently there was a bit of anger too; a pinch of abandonment that she’d mostly ignored up until now. Up until seeing his face.

Stiles sat back in his seat, his mouth forming a tight line. After a tense moment he spoke up but this time with a flat and guarded tone.

“How is everyone? Scott and…everyone?”

She turned her coffee cup around slowly and avoided his eyes.

“I wouldn’t really know – they were fine when I left but that was...” she silently counted the days, “two weeks ago.”

His eyebrows shot up. “You haven’t been calling them?”

“Have you?” she asked pointedly.

He had done the whole Skype thing at first, but it hadn’t taken long before his correspondence had dwindled down to a weekly email to his father and the odd game of silent online Scrabble with her. Scott got sporadic emails and had received a postcard or two. All in all it had felt inadequate and by the look on his face he knew it.

They both fell into an uncomfortable silence broken only by the church bells in the distance that marked the noon hour.

“This is stupid,” she finally sighed.

Stiles lost a bit of his rigidity and slumped into his chair. “Agreed. Sorry, it’s just…”

“It’s been a while,” she finished for him.

“How long are you in the city for?” he asked, glancing at his watch.

“Two more days. I fly out on Friday – heading home.”

He looked into her eyes and exhaled deeply, running his hand through his hair. “Okay, I uh…I have a thing now but…where are you staying? Are you free tonight? Say…eightish?”

She wasn’t but she would change that. And she was a little miffed that he wasn’t cancelling _his_ thing to stay with her now. “Le Palais Art Hotel, do you know it?”

He chuckled but it sounded tight and a bit forced. “I think we can agree that you and I have probably been staying in very different places while we’ve been here. But don’t worry, I’ll find it. See you tonight.”

He was getting up and quite suddenly she was alone again, the entire reunion ending rather abruptly. He turned the first corner and it was as if he hadn’t been there at all. Lydia stared into her coffee and frowned.

What the actual fuck?

  

* * *

  

“What the actual fuck dude?!”

His body was slammed against the stone wall and pain ripped through his side as a rather _sacrificial_ looking dagger barely missed sticking him like a pig. Still, his sliced ribs did not appreciate the gesture.

Stiles pushed his assailant back with a grunt and as much physical force as he could muster, all the while chanting under his breath. He could feel the tattoo on his right forearm burning, almost to the point of being unbearable. _Good_. The more the ink broiled, the worse the djinn looked. Its eyes rolled and a sort of shriek ripped through its entire being. Once it lay flat against the opposite wall of the alley, Stiles moved his hand from the thing’s chest to its face.

“ _Ignis internum in extremis, ignis internum in extremis, ignis internum in extremis, ignis internum in extremis…”_

The fire within at the point of death…

The djinn’s flesh was hot to the touch now and soon Stiles would be unable to hold it down without being burned himself.

And then all at once it was over and all that remained of the altercation was a black shadow scorched into the stone and a dagger at Stiles’ feet. He grunted in pain as he bent down to pick it up. It was silver, curved and no less deadly looking then when it had been trying to gut him. Lorek would find it interesting, no doubt. He slipped the blade into the hip of his pants, tucking the hilt into his belt so it wouldn’t slip out and slice him while he walked.

Holding his side gingerly, Stiles staggered out of the privacy of the alley and onto the street.

Yeah, this was going to need stitches.

 


	2. Date Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own people, places, or things!

**CHAPTER TWO**

* * *

 

_He stood within the circle of unconscious werewolves, sucking in breath as the world faded in and out around him. Beyond the melee Lorek was slowly rising from his haunches, staring wide-eyed at Stiles and the confusion around him._

_“Do that often, boy?”_

_Stiles swayed. “What?”_

_“Who taught you to do that?”_

_“…I don’t…” the blood seemed to have drained from his head altogether and he felt as though he was going to be sick. “What h-happened?”_

_Lorek approached him slowly, stepping around prone bodies – their lupine features slowly retreating to reveal human faces beneath. Amongst them, Jackson lay as motionless as the rest. Lorek got within ten feet of Stiles and seemed willing to go no further, though his expression remained impassive and steely as ever._

_“Come away now,” he advised calmly, and Stiles took one shaky step forward before darkness took over and the world seemed to swallow him whole._

  

* * *

  

            Lydia refused to wait for him in the lobby looking impatient and desperate. She could be both of those things in the privacy of her room.

            God, but seeing him again had made her…well.

            She had to admit that she and Stiles had a certain _history._ It had only been during the whole Jennifer business that she’d really allowed herself to take notice of him. Of course he’d sort of been around forever, especially during the Peter mauling her thing. And how could she forget the whole _if you die, I will literally go out of my freaking mind_ speech? But somehow Lydia had always forced herself to brush Stiles to the side, to never really consider him. Jennifer had changed that. The kiss had changed that.

            The ritual had cemented it.

           And she might be angry but he was _here,_ finally in front of her again. And once the shock of seeing him out of nowhere had worn off, Lydia was damned if she was going to chase him off with her own residual issues. She wasn’t going to ignore that flutter of _something_ that had really woken her up when she’d realized it was him she’d been staring at this morning.

            So yes. Impatience and desperation were currently things that were happening.

          Upon returning to the hotel earlier that evening, she had showered and dressed. Then redressed. Done her hair and makeup, redressed again. And then there was nothing else to do but wait. With an impatient huff, she opened her laptop and checked to see if Scott was online. It was about 11:30am in Beacon Hills so she was surprised to see his Skype icon lit up.

            “Hey you!” his voice was chipper but his face betrayed his concern. “How’s Italy?”

            “Prague, Scott. I’m in Prague.”

            “Uhhh…”

            “That’s in the Czech Republic.”

            “Oh,” he flashed her a grin that froze momentarily on the screen. “So how’s that going? Coming home soon?”

            “Friday.”

            “Good, we’ve missed you!”

            She missed the pack too, but she wasn’t going to apologize for leaving. She had needed a break, even if only for a couple of weeks. Hence the radio silence thus far.

            “Are you okay?” he asked softly. “You haven’t really been in touch since you left. I was afraid…”

            She instantly felt like an asshole. “Sorry,” so much for not apologizing, “I kind of got caught up here. But, um…”

            His face grew solemn. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

            “Nothing, nothing. It’s just…” she ran a hand through the ringlets of her hair. “You’ll never guess who I bumped into today.”

            He remained silent, brow quirked and waiting as if they didn’t only know two other people on this side of the Atlantic right now.

            “Stiles. It was Stiles.”

            He sat back with an audible _whump_. “Shit…I mean…how did he look? Was he…?”

            They both sat silent for a moment until she found her composure. “He looked good. Different, but good. Healthy.”

            “That’s great Lydia, I mean – that’s really good that he’s…good…” Scott was looking past the camera now, looking like a lost puppy. “Did you talk? Is he…?”

            _Coming home?_

            It went unsaid, like it always did.

            “I don’t know,” she admitted, suddenly feeling exhausted. “I’m seeing him tonight though. Soon actually. I’ll call you tomorrow?”

            “Yeah, yeah of course. Keep me posted.”

            “Scott?”

            “Yeah Lydia?”

            “I can’t believe I’m saying this but…don’t tell the Sherriff. I got the distinct impression he’s in the dark about the exact country Stiles is in at the moment. Normally I wouldn’t ask, but – ”

            Scott cut her off. “He’s not even in town right now. But I’ll tell you what; I won’t say anything to him until we talk again. How does that sound?”

            “Perfect.”

            They both signed off just as the phone on the desk rang.

            “There is a visitor at the front desk for you Miss Martin,” the concierge informed her.

            “Please tell him I’ll meet him at the bar.”

            “Very good miss.”

  

* * *

  

            Seeing her earlier had been a shock – a painful one, like a kick to the chest. And he’d been preoccupied and they’d instantly gotten under each other’s skin, and…and, and, and what was even happening? Of all the people who could have jumped him in the street it had to be Lydia freaking Martin. Lydia, who made him think of Allison, who made him think of demon possession and…

            And, and, and.

            The djinn had been a brief reprieve from the crackling ball of anxiety that was him. But now he was sitting in a hotel bar, downing a whiskey to take off the edge, and waiting for this pint-size blazing reminder of all the awful things he’d done.

But here she came and, god, how could Stiles have forgotten how stunning she was? Soft red hair curled down her back, and those hazel eyes flashing. Her full lips pressed together in a sort of superior way that only she could pull off. Where he looked dusty and _travelled,_ Lydia looked positively _designer._ She was wearing a short skirt and blouse ensemble, with killer heels no less. How she walked (hell, _ran_ ) in those things, he’d never know. Next to her he looked homeless.

Stiles had pulled on the only clean clothes he owned. Well, mostly clean. The jeans had seen some action the day before, but they weren’t covered in blood so that was a plus. Hopefully in the dim light of the bar she wouldn’t notice his long sleeve tee had once been more white than grey. Luckily the leather jacket sort of hid that and the thick wad of bandaging wrapped around his rib cage. With any luck she wouldn’t notice the tear in the leather from when a rather persistent kelpie had tried to take him down a few weeks earlier in Scotland…

            “How very Derek of you,” she quipped walking up to the bar and plucking at the jacket.

            After their terse conversation that morning he hadn’t been sure how she’d act tonight, so the comment threw him off. He quickly recovered, “I prefer Sourwolf Couture, thank-you very much.”

            She did the closest thing to an indigent snort that would ever come out of Lydia Martin.

            “Can I buy you a drink?” he asked, hoping desperately she wouldn’t want to stay here for it.

            Lydia was not the only person at this hotel better dressed than him. The bartender hadn’t seemed to think twice about him, but the trio of men sitting further down the bar certainly weren’t impressed by his presence. It wasn’t as if he was self-conscious about his social standing with these people, but if he could avoid sticking out like a sore thumb anywhere he would. Which was especially hard now that Lydia was with him. The men at the bar were dragging their gazes up and down her body, which only made him…jealous. Which was a strange feeling to have creep up on you after so long.

            But than this was Lydia, and he should have known better.

            “There’s a place not far from here,” she offered much to his relief.

            “Lead the way.”

  

* * *

  

            Something had been bothering her about him since recognizing him in the street that morning. And now that they were seated in a quiet corner of a bar three blocks away from the hotel, it struck her.

Stiles was _still._ As in: no fidgeting, no finger tapping, or leg jostling. His mouth wasn’t even running a mile a minute. He was leaning back in his chair, taking the first sip of his whiskey (the _very last_ drink of choice she would have pegged him for, by the way) without any unnecessary movement. It was eerie and not a little unsettling.

            He caught her staring. “What?”

            She cleared her throat. “It’s nothing, it’s just strange seeing you after all this time. Here of all places.”

            There was a brief silence before Stiles set his glass down and leaned forward. “What are you doing here, Lydia?”

            His manner was nothing but curious, but it irked her nonetheless.

            “Taking your advice for one thing,” she replied with no small amount of bite to her tone.

            He sat back, “What?”

            “‘Will you stay here, Lydia?’” she said in a horrible impersonation of him. “‘You should take a break, Lydia’.”

            “Lydia,” he said cautiously, clearly taken aback by the reply, “that was two years ago.”

            “I’m aware,” she responded with a glare.

            “Well, I – I guess I’m just surprised that you didn’t do it sooner. I mean, when I suggested it, I kind of thought you would…well…I just didn’t think you’d wait so long.”

           Lydia did not want to think about the weeks following Stiles’ departure. It just hadn’t felt right to leave. It felt like if she went she would have been leaving more than Scott behind. She would have been leaving Allison too.

            “What are _you_ doing here?” she countered archly.

            And just like that he shut down. His features went blank and he looked away from her.

            Damn. She knew why he had left, couldn’t very well hold it against him. She had all but given him permission to go. For the millionth time Lydia had to remind herself of the crucial reason behind his departure. Stiles wasn’t them. He wasn’t Scott who needed people to help him cope. And he wasn’t Lydia who needed to be in control of all things to get her by. Stiles had needed distance, and what he did with it was exactly none of her business.

            The ire melted away and Lydia leaned forward and placed a hand atop his clutched fist. For a moment it looked as though he was relaxing at her touch but instead he patted her hand with his free one before drawing both away and holding them in his lap.

            “I’m sorry,” she said softly, looking at him intently until he turned his focus back to her. “I’m being a bitch, I know. It’s just...” she refused to cry and silently informed her tear ducts of that decision, “you said you were coming back. You _promised_.”

            God, she sounded like a spoiled child. _You promised_.

            “It hasn’t exactly been a lifetime,” he retorted, but it sounded tired to her ears. Stiles was no more up to this fight than she was.

            They sat in silence, occasionally drinking while she plucked at the tablecloth and he ran his finger along the rim of his glass. It was the closest thing to fidgeting she’d seen him do all night.

            “Tell me about the new look,” she finally said as kindly as she could, determined to salvage the evening.

            He looked up and cleared his throat. “The tattoos? They’re uh…”

            “Magical runes,” she supplied much to his surprise.

            “How did you –?”

           “As if I’ve just been sitting on my Banshee ass doing nothing all this time,” she answered primly. “Things happen, enchanted what-not’s need researching. Magical runes have come up once or twice.”

            “Right,” he looked slightly uncomfortable. “Has there been trouble than?”

            “No more than usual. Nothing we haven’t been able to handle. So…the tattoos?”

            “Uh, yeah. As it happens I have a bit of a knack for that kind of thing. Deaton called it a spark. Turns out it’s more of a solar flare. According to Lorek anyway.”

            “Lorek?”

            “Yeah, he’s…sort of the Deaton to my Scott? Only, like, way less cryptic and weird. I met up with him a while back and he was able to help me with the whole…magic thing.”

            “So, what? You’re a wizard Harry?”

            He just stared at her. “I am going to cherish this moment forever.”

            “Shut it Stilinski, you know what I mean.”

            He chuckled and it actually sounded real. Lydia smiled back.

            “More like a Druid.”

            “As in emissary?”

            “No. I mean, I guess it could happen but not every Druid attaches themselves to a pack.”

            There was an implication there that she’d be revisiting later.

            “And the ink is to facilitate spells on the spot, instead of having to draw the symbols every time you need them.”

            He flashed her a smile. “Top marks Miss Martin.”

            “Not just a pretty face,” she countered with a grin.

           After that the conversation became easier. There was still a certain amount of dancing around things like home and the pack. It was like there was a line drawn in the sand. Supernatural bullshit in the UK or EU? Totally fine, although she suspected he was holding back and significantly downplaying the amount of trouble he’d gotten into. Anything remotely about the supernatural at home (or anything close to the inhabitants of Beacon Hills) and he would clam up completely.

            She didn’t push him though, not when he was actually telling her about his life here. Apparently it hadn’t taken long for the very thing he’d been avoiding in America to catch up with him here. Or rather, in London. He had been there exactly two weeks before running into Jackson and getting caught up in a territory war. She had known they’d been in contact thanks to Danny hearing it from Jackson himself, but she’d had no idea of the mess it had been. After that, Stiles continued, Lorek had shown up and they’d been gallivanting across the continent ever since, currently with a Brownie named Carl and Ramona the Valkyrie. Which, no, Lydia was not going to think about.

            “Hunting?” she repeated flatly.

         “Think of it more like fighting crime,” he offered. “Unless whatever it is is trying to kill us, we generally just make it known if they’re stepping on toes – human or otherwise. Honestly though, we tend to go after the insane ones. Rogues mostly. Or assholes bent on terrorizing humans _and_ supes. It doesn’t even compare to what the human Hunters get up to. It’s not based off prejudice; it’s more like keeping the peace. We’ve even gone after other Hunters with questionable Codes.”

            “Supernatural crime fighters.”

            “It’s totally hot, I know.”

            “You are such a dork.”

            His chuckle died down and he looked at her contently but with a gleam of seriousness in his eyes.

            “It makes such a difference, Lydia. Being able to hold my own in a fight; not needing constant protection.”

            She nodded. “I know that feeling.”

            It was something that had been solely theirs once upon a time. Frail humanity. Which was ridiculous really, because a banshee and a druid were hardly _human_ in the strictest sense. But even Allison, the most human of them all had been able to defend herself up until the end. Lydia swallowed hard at the thought.

            “Is that why you’ve stayed away?” She couldn’t _not_ ask. The question had been nagging at her. “Because you want to be prepared for whatever fight comes next?”

            

* * *

  

            The silence sat between them while he considered her. This was Lydia Freaking Martin: genius, Banshee, and (aside from Scott) the only one who had any inkling of what he had gone though with the Nogitsune. She was his anchor after all. And despite her initial irritation with him, Stiles was pretty sure everything she had said all day had been more out of worry than actual anger. He owed her an answer, though maybe not the _full_ answer, even if the thought of it might drown him.

            “The thought had crossed my mind,” he said quietly.

            She sighed. “I’m only going to say this once tonight Stiles, because you have to hear it and I think I have to say it to you. Nothing that happened was your fault. If it hadn’t come after you it would have been Scott. It would have been Allison. The ritual…”

            He flinched and immediately hoped she hadn’t noticed.

            “What happened doesn’t make you weak. And it wasn’t _you_. It wore you like a mask but it _wasn’t you._ ”

           He looked up and saw that she had tears in her eyes, spilling over and rolling down her rouged cheeks. He reached across the table and brushed them away. “Hey, enough of that.”

            She sniffed and dashed a hand under her eyes, ever careful of her makeup.

            “Look at us, we’re ridiculous,” she said with a thick throat.

            He pulled out his wallet and placed a few notes on the table to cover for the drinks. “Come on, I think we could both use some fresh air.”

            Standing, Stiles led Lydia out into the street. It was freezing and so, naturally, she hadn’t brought a jacket. Slipping out of his, Stiles placed it over her shoulders before jamming his hands into his trouser pockets. They headed back to the hotel in silence (comfortable now and without tension) at a slow meandering pace.

            “Where are you staying?” she asked as they neared the entrance to Le Palais Art.

            “Erm…” he rubbed the back of his neck. “We’re all boarding in a place across the river.”

            He couldn’t think of a polite way of saying that she would never under any circumstances be going there. Ever. It was a dank two-bedroom apartment currently housing three males and one less than prudish woman, all with a tendency to come home covered in sweat and blood; not only their own. The place made his old lacrosse bag smell like The Body Shop.

            “Want to come up?” she asked casually, making him choke on _air._ “Relax, Stiles. You can use the shower, get some free room service and sleep in a real bed for once. By the sounds of things, you’ve been slumming it long enough.”

            He couldn’t exactly say no. Or, he _could_ but that would be incredibly stupid and he’d have to go jump off a bridge or something if he did.

            “Sure,” he said in his best nonchalant voice.

            He could see she wasn’t fooled by it. 


	3. The Question Of Stiles' Virtue...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own a damn thing...directly connected with the TW series.

 

**CHAPTER THREE**

* * *

 

Lydia wasn’t quite sure why she’d asked him up. Of course he looked like he could use some hotel pampering and from what she had gleaned from him, his current place wasn’t exactly four stars. But if she, even for a moment, let herself think about him going back to his apartment to this _Ramona_ person her mind had a tendency to go all… _red_.

So she called down for extra towels and a laundry pick-up and ushered him into the bathroom, not a little giddy of the thought of him in there, aided by the faint buzz of liquid courage imbibed at the bar. And if she pushed him to take a shower almost immediately upon entering the room (and snagged his clothes to be laundered while he showered), it was because she had some processing of said giddiness to do. A feeling that she would have tried to quash, were in not for the fact that she’d kissed him over two years ago. Kissed him, and then thought about that kiss for quite sometime after. And then when there had been a very good chance that Stiles was going to _die,_ that they might all die, she had clung onto that kiss and promised herself she would do it again if they made it out alive.

But then Allison and Aiden… 

And he had left and hadn’t come back right away like they’d all expected. _Give him a few weeks_ , she’d told Scott. Then, _a couple of months tops._ Two years later and he still hadn’t come home.

Only now he was in her bathroom in Prague, showering and all she could think of was that lifetime of a moment in the locker room – their lips pressed together and his heart pounding so wildly she could still feel it here and now.

“Get yourself together,” she snapped at herself in the room’s full-length mirror.

So, yeah. She wanted Stiles. Had for a while even. But there was the resentment at being left behind for so long. And yet, look at him now! How could she resent him for doing so well here?

_You hate it because he didn’t need your help to do it._

Sometimes she hated herself a little. Or loathed. A lot.

There was a knock on the door signaling the arrival of the towels just as the water was shut off in the other room. Swapping them out for Stiles’ clothes with the bellboy, she opened the bathroom door a crack, grinned at the weak yelp of surprise from within and handed Stiles the towels.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t see anything. Your virtue is intact.”

There was a grumbled reply from behind the now closed (and firmly locked) door.

A thought suddenly struck Lydia. Was Stiles still a virgin? He hadn’t exactly been discreet about it back when Jennifer was doing her sacrificial killings. But two years in a strange place was a long time. Spending part of that time with _Ramona_ might have even sealed the deal.

She suddenly felt uncomfortable. What right did she have to be…what was this? Was it jealousy? It wasn’t as though she had been a saint all this time. In fact the date she’d cancelled tonight was a recap from an encounter last week.

Scott needed companionship, Stiles needed distance, and Lydia needed control. Stupid, sexy, borderline anonymous control.

Falling back onto the bed with a mix between a groan and a huff, Lydia forced herself to be rational. It didn’t really matter what (or who) he had done while he was away, it wasn’t any of her business.

“You okay?”

She sat up to see a shirtless Stiles standing in the bathroom doorway, a towel wrapped around his waist and the left side of his rib cage bound by thick gauze. His lithe but impressive musculature was a tableau of injuries (some old, some fresher than others) and tattoos. It was shocking but had she really expected hunting to leave him unscathed all this time? Well, certainly not _that_ scathed! She was finding it somewhat hard to breathe as dread filled her. How close to never coming home again had he gotten?

“Where are my clothes?”

She vaguely recalled a moment not too long ago involving the exchange of towels for tattered clothing and the word ‘launder’.

“Laundry,” she managed. “What, uh…what happened there?”

  

* * *

  

She was pointing to the gauze but her cheeks were flushed and Stiles was legitimately worried she might pass out. He closed the distance between them and knelt down in front of where she was seated, _very_ aware of the integrity of what now felt like an incredibly small and inadequate piece of material covering his _parts_.

He hadn’t meant for her to see the cut at all when the night had started out, had even considered never leaving the bathroom just now, knowing the scars would be a shock. But considering the sudden disappearance of his clothing, well…

He looked up at her, his hand on her bare leg. The moment he touched her his stomach did a full-blown somersault.

Holy mother of god, things had not changed since high school.

“Lydia, you alright?” It came out in a rasp.

Time slowed to a crawl and there was only their breathing, faces drawing closer. And quite suddenly she was kissing him with a fire that left their first kiss in the dust. His hands went to her hair and, in a motion that might have gotten a lesser person legit killed, Lydia had him on his back on the bed, her lips locked against his in a moment of pure euphoria.

Followed directly by pain.

A hiss escaped him as he relinquished his hold on her hip to press firmly against his side.

“Fuck, mother of Obi-fucking-Wan…”

She was on the other side of the room within seconds, as if scalded. “Oh my god, are you…? Did I…? Stiles?”

He sat up gingerly and waved away her incoherent worries. “M’fine.”

But of course in saying that, the hand he’d waved came away bloody through the bandaging.

“Damn, I think I pulled the stitches.”

Lydia seemed to snap into action, disappearing into the bathroom and returning with two of the unused bath towels and a hand towel.

“Here,” she thrust the hand towel at him and set about laying the other ones over the seat of the fancy couch that sat across the room. “Come over here where the light is better.”

Stiles was hardly bleeding to death but he complied, holding the hand towel to his side.

“It’s not that bad,” he said through clenched teeth. “It just stings a bit.”

She gave him that look. The one that said I-don’t-believe-you-and-you-will-tell-me-the-truth-or-so-help-me-that-lie-will-be-your-last.

“Honestly, Lydia. I just need to wrap it up again.”

“Let me see it,” she demanded imperiously.

He groaned but complied. It really wasn’t that bad – he’d certainly had worse. He hadn’t even needed to stitch the whole thing, just a few sutures where the djinn’s knife had gone in deepest. There were parts of it that probably wouldn’t even scar.

“Stiles, the doctor that did this for you should have their license revoked!”

Well that stung a bit.

“Hey, it’s not that easy! _You_ try sewing yourself up where you can barely see it without a decent mirror,” which they didn’t really have at the flat, “under shitty lighting,” which they _did_ have, “in a place where you can really only use the one hand to reach!”

He raised his arms in a sort of loose impression of what he’d looked like attempting just that this afternoon. Minus the circling himself like a dog chasing its own tail. Because…dignity.

She stared at him blankly.

“You did this.”

It was so entirely not a question.

“Um…yes?”

He had made a very stupid mistake, he could tell.

  

* * *

  

She might have actually blacked out for a second, if only to reconcile the image of the boy who could barely handle the sight of blood with the man in front of her who had _given himself stitches_! How many times had he done it? The reality that the scars offered made her sick. A distant memory involving Allison and Scott in a scuzzy bathroom surfaced and she angrily brushed it away.

“You’re coming home.”

Well she hadn’t really expected to say that. Was shocked, even, that it had popped out of her mouth at all. But now that the words lay between them, she had no intention of taking them back.

“What?”

“You heard me. You’ve been gone long enough and you’re no safer here than you ever were in Beacon Hills. Only, here no one is around to take care of you.”

His face went stony. “I don’t need anyone to –”

“Bullshit,” she cut in. “That’s bullshit. We all need that. Even Scott, Isaac, Kira, hell even Derek. _We all do_. You are no different, Stiles Stilinski! Clearly no one here is looking out for you.”

His jaw clenched. “I have people here, I have –”

She wasn’t finished. “Lorek? Ramona? The Brownie? Then why didn’t one of them do this for you? Or, I don’t know – wild thought here, really – why didn’t one of them take you to an actual doctor?!”

He sprung up from the chaise lounge and stalked over to the other side of the room, as far away from her as possible it seemed.

Lydia crossed her arms and glared at him. No way was she letting him clam up about this one.

“You need to come home. It is time to _come home_.”

He turned to glare at her, angry now that she’d cornered him like this. “I can handle myself. I’m an asset here, not a burden – I have skills, and strength, and a reputation with the assholes that think they can do what they want, when they want. I am not a child; I’m not a sidekick, or a goddamn liability. So don’t come here making demands as if I’ll just follow them blindly!”

Lydia was clenching her fists at her side, ready to spit venom, when he marched over to the phone.

“Yeah, room 610 – I’ll be needing those clothes back. _Now._ ”

“What are you doing?” she snapped, as he slammed down the receiver.

“Leaving. This was obviously a mistake.”

“You can’t just go!”

“What does it even matter to you, Lydia?!”

The air seemed to leave her lungs. “Excuse me?”

“What is this going to change?” he gestured wildly between the two of them. “We haven’t seen each other in forever! We’ve been on the same continent for two weeks and you never told me you were here! When you saw me on the street did you just think everything would go back to the way it was?”

She couldn’t give him an answer. Not because she didn’t have one, but because she was embarrassed to realize that she had indeed hoped for exactly that. It was a rare moment of naivety that she was already learning to loathe.

“I don’t know what I was thinking, I should never have come tonight!” he shouted incredulously. “I have purpose here, Lydia! I have a job to do, and a life! And then you show up and throw a fucking wrench into it, trying to drag me back to that living hell as if it’s _home_! As if I’m _wanted_ there! What makes you think I could go back to that place without going fucking insane?!”

She opened her mouth, entirely unsure how to respond to any number of the things he’d just said, but was interrupted by the incoming call ringing from her open computer. She tore her eyes away from him to see Scott’s picture flashing on the screen. Stiles’ face lost its angry red colour and instantly turned ashen. With nowhere else to go wearing only a towel he retreated to the bathroom and slammed the door shut.

Lydia was immobile with shock for a split second before moving toward the computer and accepting the call.

“Scott?”

“Lydia!” he looked harried and there was blood on his muscle tee. “Please tell me you’re able to catch an earlier flight home!”

“What’s going on there?!”

The screen froze but his voice persisted. “We’ve got…witches? Deaton said witches. It’s a mess, please tell me –!”

The screen unfroze just as the wall imploded behind Scott, followed by an off-screen shriek and growl. There were shouts and swearing and she thought she saw Isaac streak past the screen.

“We need you here!” Scott growled, his eyes blazing red. “They killed Peter, Lydia! They want the whole pack dead!”

“I’ll be on the next plane!”

They closed the call and Lydia marched over to the bathroom and yanked the door open. Stiles was leaning with his back against the counter, his face drawn. She assumed he had been listening in.

By the looks of him, he might as well have been waiting on his own execution.

“You have a choice to make.”

  

* * *

  

He’d left her to figure out the plane tickets and to make their travel arrangements while he went back to the apartment to get his things. He’d made it to the first alley he saw before he was hunched over with his hand pressed against his clammy forehead, having a full-blown breakdown.

Scott. Scotty. His friend. The one who had lost Allison (Lydia had too but not in the same way), the one who had stood there while Stiles had run him through with a fucking sword.

He retched, heaving until his stomach was just a hollow ache.

He’d been avoiding him, his best friend. He had been hiding on another fucking continent for almost two years and now without warning he was being thrust back into that hell. Because his friend needed him. The chaotic sounds of that call rang in his ears. He had to admit, Peter dying was sort of a load off his shoulders in a vaguely sociopathic sort of way. He’d been waiting for that guy to die ever since the first time didn’t take.

But the rest of them…

He had to go back.

Two years of built up guilt rushed in. Everything he’d just yelled at Lydia was the truth. Beacon Hills was a living hell for Stiles. His sleeping hours were often spent wandering the massacred halls of the hospital, the school, and the clinic. Sometimes he dreamt he was lost on the preserve, finding bodies of the people he (the Nogitsune, even those fucking samurai ninjas) had killed. Other times it was him ripping through his friends with bombs, swords, guns. And the Nemeton, always the Nemeton, calling him back for what he didn’t know.

He could admit, now that he was making the trip, that he’d never really considered returning. A part of him knew that he had spent this entire time staying for just a couple more months, just a couple more, fighting his way through Europe hoping that one day his luck would run out. He hadn’t precisely been staying safe. Not suicidal, but not exactly an ambassador of self-preservation. Not if the tableau of old and new battle scars that was his body was any indication.

It was called survivor’s guilt. He knew because he had Googled it. He had looked it up and was well aware that not facing his demons had not been entirely healthy, but you know what? Fuck it. He hadn’t been able to handle it, hadn’t been able to face Scott day in and day out – seeing himself as the werewolf must see him: a killer. A monster. A dark hole that consumed without remorse. That reassuring nod, the twitch of a trusting smile, the thrust of the katana. Stiles remembered every sickening second of it.

He leaned back against the wall and sucked in a breath, making his side sting like hell.

“Fuck my life,” he gasped.

He needed to get shit done. He needed to keep moving and cease thinking.

Lorek and Ramona were at the apartment when he got there and he was instantly struck by the tired silence that surrounded them.

“What happened?” he asked cautiously.

Lorek looked up from his seat on the ratty couch, his steely grey eyes narrowing through the ever-present haze of cigarette smoke. Stiles was intently aware that whatever he had just walked into, Lorek knew that he’d come with his own news. The older man shook another cigarette out of the pack and held it out.

Stiles accepted it. He had made a point of not smoking in front of Lydia, knowing full well there would be a lecture involved, but damn he needed it now.

“Carl’s dead.”

Ramona was sitting on the coffee table, holding a blood soaked rag against her shoulder. Her cold (but beautiful) features were marred by the swelling of a bruise as it blossomed around one of her eyes. Her nose was decidedly not where it had been when he’d seen her last.

She said it matter-of-factly but he could hear the underlying tightness in her voice. Stiles simply stared at her for a moment before looking away and calmly lighting the cigarette.

“How?”

Lorek pushed himself off the couch and stalked into the kitchen, coming back with three cans of beer.

“The Freybug,” Ramona answered, accepting a can. “He was having trouble tracking it so he asked for my help. We killed it but…”

Stiles inhaled deeply, rolling the proffered can around in his hand. Carl hadn’t been travelling with them long, but he had been a solid guy. Weird for a Brownie, not exactly the do-your-dishes-and-laundry type if the apartment was any indication, but he had been a damn good Hunter. He’d been after that demon dog for over a week now. It would have been a painful way to go.

Stiles would know. The creature might sound laughable, but he had the not-so-funny permanent teeth marks from one embedded in his thigh that suggested otherwise.

They sat in silence, hating everything all at once and considering their own lives. It did not escape Stiles that their outwardly unaffected manner of handling the news of a man’s death was really quite cold. He was well aware of that. But inside he knew they were all in turmoil, on one level or another – facing death and violence yet again. There seemed to be no end to it.

It took a minute before Stiles realized Lorek was watching him. “You’re leaving.”

Ramona looked up at this and raised a dark brow.

“There’s trouble back home. I only just found out about it.”

Neither asked if he’d be coming back. This was how they rolled. Since Stiles had been slumming it with Lorek after the whole Jackson thing, they’d picked up and lost companions left, right, and center. People came and people went. Sometimes they moved on, sometimes they died. Once or twice they’d actually gone home.

Stiles was going home.

He found his backpack, filthy and weathered, and filled it with his books and talismans, and a few items he knew he could get past customs. He filled a canvas duffle bag that had seen better days with his small collection of clothing. A lot of his more magical materials would have to stay if he wanted to avoid a friendly cavity search at the airport. He hadn’t exactly stayed in one place long while he’d been here, so he had packing down to a science. And without his collection of powders and liquids, he actually left with more room in his bag than he’d anticipated.

Lorek clapped him on the shoulder and grunted in a paternal sort of way while Ramona took a deep drag of her cigarette and gave him a solemn nod.

“Don’t die,” she advised.

They all shared a brief moment of understanding and unease.

“I’ll do my best.”

He knew she didn’t believe him.

  


	4. Familial Tensions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Nothing is mine. Well...Lorek, Ramona, and the Brownie are mine. But OTHER THAN THAT, I swear.

**CHAPTER FOUR**   

* * *

 

The ride to the airport was silent, tense, and altogether uncomfortable. To Lydia it literally looked as though she was marching Stiles to the gallows. Which surprised her, because while she understood that home held memories of the Nogitsune for him she’d had no idea the level to which Stiles detested Beacon Hills.

His speech back at the hotel had taken her aback. And once she had time to digest his words, she began to worry what taking him home to California would do to him. He thought the people who loved him, who had been missing him all this time, didn’t want him. Lydia wanted to be angry at Stiles for even thinking it, but she could see what the guilt had been doing to him; where it ate at him via the teeth and claws of the monsters he fought. It was devouring him and he was letting it happen like some cruel sort of penance.

She had managed to get tickets for the next flight out of the country by sheer luck – a red eye that had miraculously not been full. They’d even gotten seats next to each other, though she wondered if Stiles would have preferred otherwise. They had barely said two words to each other right up to take off when she finally broke the silence.

“Talk to me.” 

He had his head leaned back and his eyes closed, and for a moment she thought he wasn’t going to respond.

“My, uh…friend,” he said the word oddly as if he wasn’t sure if it was the right one, “Carl. He died earlier this evening.”

Well that was not what she had expected.

Lydia placed her hand over his as he clutched the armrest between them and was mildly surprised that he didn’t pull away from her. But he didn’t open his eyes and look at her either. “I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, me too. I uh…I found out when I stopped in at the flat.”

She hesitated. “What happened?”

His eyebrows knit together, not in anger but like he was trying to understand it himself. “What usually happens.”

She imagined all the deadly fights he’d been in and wondered how many of them had ended in the death of one of his companions.

“Please don’t shut me out,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. “We can’t do this if you do.”

He finally opened his eyes and looked right at her.

“What exactly are we doing?”

God he sounded so tired.

“We’re going home. We’re going to help our friends, our family. We’re going to kick some witch ass and then we’re going to put our lives back together.”

Because while they’d all been healing – slowly and achingly – back in Beacon Hills, Stiles’ absence had been its own open wound. And god, she was ready for it to close.

  

* * *

  

Lydia rented a car when they both agreed that they couldn’t handle the stop and go of a shuttle bus from LAX to Beacon Hills.

He could tell she was riddled with worry.

His own insides were twisted in a knot of anxiety. In part at the prospect of going back and facing every nightmare he’d had since leaving and in part with worry for his friends and his dad. Was the Sheriff involved in this fight? He’d mentioned in their phone calls and emails that he and the pack had collaborated a bit over the past year. He’d promised he was being safe though.

He’d _promised_.

But then, so had Stiles.

When they were minutes away from the turn off into town, she pointed to her cellphone where it sat in the center console.

“See if you can get Scott on the phone.”

“Lydia –” he started to protest, unsure of what he’d say to her really. _Sorry, but the thought of talking to my best friend in the world makes me prone to stomach pyrotechnics._

“ _Now_ Stiles,” she all but snapped. “I’m not exactly doing the limit here and I’d rather not add the distraction of a phone call to the mix. We need to know where to meet them.”

He picked the phone up with an uncharacteristically shaky hand (and ignored her when Lydia glanced over at it), and found Scott’s number. He let it ring and almost hung up in order to try for Isaac or Deaton, when the call was finally answered. He put it on speaker.

“Lydia!” Scott sounded completely exhausted. “Where are you?”

Stiles cleared his throat uncomfortably. “It’s Stiles, man. Lydia’s here too though.”

There was silence on the other end.

“Dude?”

“Stiles!” The shock was there and it was no less painful to hear it than Stiles had imagined it would be. “I didn’t know – I mean, I didn’t realize –!”

“Couldn’t leave you hanging,” he replied with a nervous sort of laugh, and then instantly regretted it because he’d done just that for two whole years.

“Where are we meeting you Scott?” Lydia interjected, saving them from a mountain of awkwardness.

Scott snapped back to action. “Right, you guys need to be careful coming into town. They’ve got eyes on the school, the loft, the clinic…everywhere the pack goes.”

“My house?” Stiles choked out.

There was a pause. “Yeah, that will work man. Thanks. When you get there, _stay_. The rest of us will have to wait till nightfall to head over, but we’ll get there as soon as possible.”

“We’ll see you tonight,” Lydia said.

“Yeah. And Stiles…”

“Yeah Scotty?”

“It is so fucking good to hear your voice.”

He swallowed thickly. “You too buddy.”

  

* * *

  

 _“I’m just saying that it’s a serious toss up between Obi Wan and Rupert Giles. I mean on one hand you’re totally my mentor but, on the other, Giles was only a Watcher. It’s not like he was a Slayer too. Old Ben though,_ he _was a Jedi through and through. And here we are all magical and whatever, you and me both. But Giles had magic…I mean Ripper, right? Which, come to think of it that would make me more of a Willow than a Buffy. And I’m just saying that the comparison makes sense and I like when there’s symmetry in life, you know?”_

_Lorek stared at him blankly._

_“And another thing, why is it that every time someone has powers they go bad? I mean, can’t there be anyone that doesn’t go all Vader on their friends? Or is it just that they’re predisposed to evil? Like, I was possessed by evil and I have magic, ergo…although I guess Deaton isn’t evil. Don’t get me wrong he’s mysterious as fuck, but Dark Side? I don’t see it. That sister of his though, did I ever tell you? She was going to kill me! Well not really, she was going to get me to kill myself but if I didn’t do it you can bet your ass she would have done the job. What kind of behaviour is that for a guidance councillor? Well, I guess she was guiding me technically but not exactly toward my future. I’m not even surprised Eichan House hired her. Crazy begets crazy, you know? Anyway –”_

_“Stiles.”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“Shut up.”_

  

* * *

            

The cruiser was pulling into the driveway when they turned onto the Sheriff’s street. Stiles shot forward and gripped the dashboard, eyes raptly following his father as John exited the car and made his way into the house.

“Okay?” Lydia asked gently.

He swallowed hard and nodded.

She parked the rental on the street and then simply waited. Finally, Stiles was showing signs of his old jittery self. His leg bounced and he was staring intently at his shaking hands, his face devoid of colour.

“He’s going to be so happy to see you,” she reassured him gently when he hadn’t even unbuckled his seat belt. “You did call ahead and tell him you were coming home, right?”

He gave her a curt nod. “Left a message.”

“Well than, he’s waiting for you.”

He seemed to steel himself before nodding again. They got out, retrieved their bags from the back seat and trunk, and made for the house. He was wearing his leather jacket despite the heat, and appeared to be slouching into it as though afraid the Sheriff might see through it to the mottled and healing skin that marred his body. Lydia did not want to be around when John saw that mess.

When they reached the door he paused again, fist raised as if he wasn’t sure whether to knock or just walk in. Finally, he opted for both – giving the door a solid rap while they entered into the foyer.

“Dad?”

There was the sound of glass shattering from the kitchen. Stiles seemed unable to move and Lydia was stuck behind him. Suddenly, John was poking his head through the kitchen doorway before closing the space between them in a few short steps. Stiles was enveloped in a crushing hug.

Feeling as though she was witnessing a highly personal and private moment, Lydia set her bags down and slipped past father and son into the kitchen. Sure enough, a shattered mug lay strewn on the floor in a dark roast puddle. Without anything else to do, she went about cleaning it up.

After a long interval of muffled talking, there was silence and John came in to find her standing at the sink, broken mug and spilt coffee nowhere to be seen. His eyes were red and moistened from crying but he seemed to be steady now, and all at once he was hugging her too.

Lydia swallowed the lump in her throat.

“You brought him home,” he breathed as he let her go.

“You look surprised,” she replied. “He said he’d left you a message.”

John snorted and nodded to the answering machine sitting on the counter. The red message light was flashing. Leave it to Stiles to chicken out and call the landline.

“Ah.”

“Yeah.”

Lydia glanced past the Sheriff into the empty hallway. “Where is he?”

John ran a hand through his closely cropped hair and turned to take out three more coffee cups. “Taking the bags up to his room. He says you’re staying? I’ll get the guest room cleared up for you.”

Lydia shook her head. “I’m supposed to stay until the pack comes tonight. But I imagine I’ll be heading home once we know what we’re dealing with.”

John instantly looked grim faced. “If this is about the fires, you may be better off here.”

“Scott said it was witches but he didn’t get a chance to explain. Do you know what’s been happening?”

“Witches…” John scoffed. “Well, I only just got back to town this morning from a conference. Parrish told me someone had been setting fires across town and when I called Scott I couldn’t get through. From the looks of things all the fires have been at pack-related locations. So it might be a good idea to keep your house off the list of potential targets.”

“You had Deaton make the changes to house right?” Stiles asked, appearing noiselessly in the doorway.

John looked rattled. “I may never get used to having you here again, son.”

Lydia knew he’d meant it lovingly but she saw Stiles’ jaw clench at the words. He’d gone slightly pale and she wondered how deeply he was regretting coming back.

“Changes?” she prompted, pulling his attention away from his father.

“Mountain ash baseboards, like Scott and Melissa have,” John answered for him. “He put them in ages ago. And there’s powder by both doors to close the seal if we need to.”

Stiles moved to the table and sat down, glancing at the clock on the oven. Lydia slid into the seat across from him and John passed around the coffee.

“Mountain ash might keep them out but it isn’t going to stop them setting fire to the place if that’s what they’re doing.”

“Will it though?” Lydia asked, bothered at the thought. “Aren’t witches just druids? If anything they’ll just be able to manipulate it.”

Stiles shook his head. “They’re not. It’s sort of a misconception because of the similarities between the two, but witches are a breed on their own. Druids are humans that have the ability to manipulate natural forces, but need stuff like runes, materials, and spells to get the job done. Witches are innately born with the abilities that druids need to work for, like telekinesis and _flying_ because fuck the rest of us I guess…”

  

* * *

  

“Stiles!”

He looked up at his dad and grimaced inwardly.

Swearing. Right, that thing that children weren’t supposed to do in front of their parents. He was going to have to work hard to get back into the groove of being reprimanded for saying _words_. Life with Lorek had been blissfully empty of things like this.

Then again, Lorek could never take the place of John Stilinski.

 Not ever. 

“Sorry,” he said, knowing he didn’t sound sorry at all. “Anyway, these things aren’t people like druids are – not in the human sense anyway. They can pass for humans during the day but the second the sun goes down they’re f- _freaking_ ugly. And mean, never forget mean.”

Lydia seemed to be itching to ask him something, clearly apprehensive about asking in front of his dad. His dad, who was doing an amazing job holding back right now. Stiles had asked him to hold off on questions until they had a chance to discuss the current problem. But he could see Lydia’s question was going to threaten to disrupt that tenuous restraint.

“Do you know how to fight them?” she finally blurted out.

John shot him a look, “Why would you? And how do you know all this anyway?”

Stiles rubbed both hands over his face. “Yes, and…I’ll explain later, I promise. Anyway, we’ve got,” he glanced at the clock again, “five hours till sundown and I’ve got a few things to do before the pack gets here. I need to grab some stuff from Deaton’s while you two do some prep work for me.”

John looked ready to object, but Stiles avoided his questioning eyes and left the kitchen. He took the stairs to his bedroom two at a time while the others followed him up and opened the door to his and Lydia’s bags sitting in the middle of the floor. He grabbed his hastily packed backpack and dropped it onto the bed, rifling through it until he pulled out a rough looking notebook. He’d bought the thing in London after the whole Jackson episode, and since then pages had been ripped out, taped in, and folded over. Newspaper clippings, and paper from other sources filled some of the pages, while scribbled script and symbols filled even more. He flipped through it until he came to a section flagged with a neon pink sticky note marked _“fucking witches, why even?”._ He scanned through it until finding what he was looking for and tore it out.

He thrust the paper into Lydia’s hands.

“I need the two of you to make this symbol _exactly_ at each outside corner of the house.”

“Stiles, what’re you –?”

“ _Exactly,_ Lydia. It won’t work if you’re off even by a little. I think there’s old sidewalk chalk in the basement somewhere, it should work fine.”

He turned back to the backpack, his body blocking their view of it, and pulled a few more things out and shoving them into the pockets of his jacket. Zipping up the bag, he muttered a few Latin words to ensure it stayed shut. The notebook he slipped into the waistband of his jeans against his back. He turned only to bump into Lydia as she blocked the door.

“Scott said to wait here,” she said firmly.

“I’m with Lydia here, son,” his dad added, crossing his arms. “If Scott knows what these things are capable of I think it’s safest to stay put like he said.”

“He knows more about what’s going on than we do,” Lydia added.

He was suddenly feeling very pressed in. The freedom he’d had for so long seemed to evaporate in seconds, and why not? He’d worked very hard to make sure his dad had no idea what he’d been up to while away. And Lydia seemed to be doubting what must look like a sudden surge in confidence, even after the stories he’s told her back in Prague (however much he’d played down the violence and magic). These people had no idea who was standing in front of them; _what_ was standing in front of them. They just saw the weak kid who was a trouble magnet, asking for even more trouble to rain down on them. Stiles, the liability. He found himself bristling with anger at the implication of their doubt in him.

“Except that I know more than Scott does about this,” he snapped at her, “and what I know will probably save all our asses. So if we could stop wasting time blindly following the orders of someone who’s never set eyes on these assholes, and actually listen to what _I_ have to say maybe we’ll all be alive in the morning. Unless you want to wait and see what master plan the pack has? Maybe growling and taking a menacing run at these things will do the trick! We’re on a bit of a time crunch here though, so you think that over and I’ll just get on with it okay?”

Lydia was clearly biting back a retort, but she moved out of his way and didn’t follow as he made his way back downstairs. Yep, he’d fucked that up, but he was too wound up to back down now.

His dad, on the other hand, was not about to grant him the same space.

“You don’t get to waltz back into this house and talk to _anyone_ under my roof like that,” he called out stopping Stiles in his tracks. “Not when you haven’t even explained yourself to me.”

It was the tone. The accusatory tone that had plagued their relationship from the night Scott had been bitten. And even though it had dissipated a little after John had found out about all things supernatural, apparently it hadn’t left him completely. It was filled with the anger Stiles had been dreading. The same anger he’d felt from Lydia in Prague. It screamed abandonment and disappointment at him.

 _I love my dad and he loves me_ , he forced himself to remember.

He took a deep breath, willing himself to calm down, and turned to face John. “I will explain everything to you when there’s time, but right now there isn’t any. And these things – these witches? Dad, you have to back off and let me deal with them. At least do as I say until the pack gets here and I can explain to everyone what needs to be done.”

“So now it’s you _and_ the pack,” his dad replied, brows raised in mock surprise. “Because upstairs it sounded like this is the Stiles Show and Scott’s no more than a second rate wannabe hero.”

What was even happening? Stiles stared at his dad incredulously and really took in the man in front of him.

And then it dawned on him.

Stiles had left and Scott had stayed. Scott who needed people had needed John, and John had needed someone to fill the space his son had left behind. Probably not right away but eventually, when it had become clear Stiles wasn’t just going to Europe for a couple of weeks. Scott the Alpha who had brought John into the pack and kept him in the loop, who didn’t lie and disappoint. His dad trusted Scott, but not Stiles. And like the Nogitsune all over again, Stiles felt the permanency of that distrust.

Well he didn’t need to take it. He didn’t have to stand there and be berated with his failures as a son and as a friend. Even if John wasn’t accusing him of it out right, Stiles knew how to read between the lines.

“Scott is the leader of the pack and my best friend,” he seethed. “He’s a good Alpha but even he doesn’t have all the answers and he has, on occasion, been known to make bad calls. So I am going to do what I need to do to _help_ him even if that means disobeying his orders whether you like it or not.”

He pushed past John and opened the front door, calling over his shoulder, “And don’t worry. When this is all over I’ll do you a favour and waltz right back to LAX.”

He slammed the door with shocking force.

He stopped only briefly to both consider taking his Jeep, and to swallow back the anxiety that was threatening to be upchucked. As he caught his breath, Stiles had to acknowledge that the Jeep had been sitting for so long it probably wouldn’t start, let alone run long enough to get him from point A to B. Adding it to the growing list of losses, he opted to take the rental instead. 


	5. Light Thievery & A Warm Welcome

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I STILL don't own much of anything...

**CHAPTER FIVE**

* * *

_It was like undulating waves rolling through his body; waves of fire, waves of ice. The space beneath and above him was a singular entity, taking up the air around him. His breath was even._

_In._

_Out._

_In._

_Out._

_The world fell away. The guilt fell away. The memories fell too._

_All that was left was the pumping of his heart and the flow of life within his veins. And that was what it came down to in the minuteness of this moment. Life._

_Stiles wrapped himself up in Life and, for the first time since the Nogitsune, felt the void within himself fill up to brimming with it. He lost himself briefly in the feeling of sudden wholeness before remembering why he’d been so empty in the first place._

_And with the memories came the panic and soon he was being blasted back into his waking mind by the cold hiss of a fire extinguisher._

_It smelled of smoke._

_Lorek was leaning in the doorway nonchalantly, cigarette dangling from his grim mouth. The extinguisher in his hand was still pointed at Stiles who was now covered with white foam._

_He looked down at what remained of his charred clothing. His body was entirely unscathed if not a little ashy._

_“Did I just set myself on fire?”_

_Lorek responded by squeezing the trigger of the extinguisher once more._

  

* * *

  

Lydia watched from the bedroom window as he drove away and sat down on the bed, exhaling slowly. She’d been watching him completely shut down, and honestly should have seen his outburst coming. Which wasn’t to say she thought it was deserved. No, Lydia was irritated. But at the same time she knew Stiles was struggling to be back here. She’d ripped him away from Prague on the heels of a friend’s death. He had not been ready to come home; had not made the choice lightly either. What should have been a smooth and planned return to Beacon Hills had turned into something abrupt and messy. There should have been a reunion at the airport, a Welcome Home party, and instead there was parental tension and threats to leave again.

Yeah, she’d heard that. And it stung, to be sure.

Because there was the moment in the hotel to consider now; a kiss that had ended just as quickly as it had begun. A moment cleaved away from them both in a fit of anger that might have ended all hope for future _anything_ had it not been for Scott calling her home.

And all that wrapped up with Stiles seeing his father again and meeting with resistance from Lydia and John both.

No, this was not going well at all.

But all that drama would have to wait for the time being. She gently opened the paper she’d crumpled in her fist moments before, inspecting the symbol he’d given her. She didn’t recognize it, although there were parts of if that were similar to the protection runes she’d studied a few months back. Next to the drawing were instructions scribbled haphazardly in a mix of English and Latin as well as what looked suspiciously like a splotch of blood. An arrow was pointing to it with the annotation _“note to self, DO NOT BLEED ON THIS RUNE EVER AGAIN”_.

Good to know.

She pulled out her phone and sent a quick text to Scott informing him of a possible plan, and then went about doing her part.

  

* * *

  

Pulling away from the house and his dad, Stiles pushed every bit of horrible unpleasantness to the very back of his mind and focused his attention to the task at hand. There would be time enough to be flooded with all things terrible later.

Heeding Scott’s warning, he avoided the vet clinic and drove straight to Deaton’s apartment instead. He figured there was a good chance the rest of the pack still didn’t know where Deaton lived, so it was possible the witches wouldn’t know either and wouldn’t have the building under surveillance. That and the tattoos that warded against enemies inked into his biceps weren’t flaring up, which proved his theory. Hell, he only knew about Deaton’s place because pack life had an enabling affect on his anxiety and encouraged his boundary issues. The vet had never been terribly forthcoming about his life outside of animal care (werewolf or otherwise), but before leaving Beacon Hills, Stiles had known the addresses and phone numbers of everyone remotely connected to pack business by heart. Whether they knew he knew them or not.

He was just lucky Deaton hadn’t moved shop, or he’d have had to risk finding supplies at the clinic. And he wasn’t confident that a) the place wasn’t on witch watch, and b) the vet would even keep what Stiles needed there. So for the second time that afternoon, Stiles found himself standing before a door wondering how to proceed. Only this time he was deciding between social graces and straight up breaking and entering. Buzzing into the main lobby had already proven Deaton wasn’t home, or was at least pretending not to be (thank-you Mrs. Davies of 402 for the ill-advised stranger entry), and so had knocking on his door. On the ever-growing list of downsides to being back in the US, the lack of an American cell phone on which to simply call him was somewhere near the top.

So now Stiles had a choice. Respect his fellow Druid’s space and track down his super-hard-to-find-in-today’s-economy spell supplies elsewhere, _or_ break in and take them. Option one was a time waster and option two was probably life threatening. Stiles knew a thing or two about cursing one’s shit to keep others out of it. The bags he’d brought home with him, for instance, were entirely unfriendly to anyone who might try to magic them open (post airport of course). The thought made him vaguely worried that Lydia might try to do just that. He hoped he wouldn’t be returning to the mess if she did.

Anyway, Deaton had been at this Druid thing for a lifetime longer than Stiles had. And while he was sure he knew a thing or two the vet didn’t, he wasn’t dumb enough to think two years abroad with Lorek had taught him all the tricks.

He had, however, learned one important thing.

Stiles reached into the chest pocket of his jacket and pulled out a set of lock picks and a white pastel pencil. Of course he had a myriad of “safe passage” tattoos that more permanently guaranteed his safety, but one could never be too cautious. He reached up and swiftly drew a few runes above the frame of Deaton’s door. Muttering in a dead language (the origins of which he wasn’t entirely sure of), Stiles gently worked away at the lock until he heard a faint click and slowly stepped into the apartment. Aside from the mild burning along his spinal cord (Lorek had suggested the tattoo placement for some unknown and uncomfortable reason), the passage was uneventful. Whatever safeguards Deaton had put on the place weren’t holding up to Stiles’ mojo.

The apartment was pretty much what he expected it to be. Clean and organized, warm tones, and a remarkable lack of bachelor vibes. He spotted a rather crowded looking bookshelf in the living room and decided to start there first. Sure enough, in true medical practitioner style, every box, jar, and vial was neatly labeled. Stiles pocketed some dried African blue basil, a jar of Talamanca Del Caribe pepper, and some blessed clove oil. Regular clove oil would have been fine, but he wasn’t about to turn down an ingredient sanctified by old shaman dudes from the Himalayas. Rifling around, he also opted for a black roman candle and a pair of bear incisors.

Two years ago Stiles would have been weirded out by Deaton’s collection of animal teeth. Now he was just grateful for the selection.

Noting (with a thank-you and a promise never to do it again unless under similar extremis) that he had been by on a notepad by the vet’s phone and sticking it to the bookcase, Stiles left the apartment. He locked up behind himself and wiped away the runes above the door, ensuring they wouldn’t be there to help any unfriendlies do as he had just done.

Now to just stop off at the supermarket before heading back to the current hell that was home.

  

* * *

  

The supposed basement chalk had been non-existent so Lydia had opted for the longevity of a Sharpie to draw the runes on the siding of the Sheriff’s house. He had only objected a little and it had been pretty half-hearted.

When she had found him in the kitchen later, he had looked as though the blow out had aged him by about ten years. They both sat there now waiting for the Stiles to return, the silence driving Lydia crazy.

She cleared her throat uncomfortably, “He didn’t have to be a jerk about it, but you should know this isn’t easy for him. Being back, that is.”

John’s shoulders sank. “You don’t have to persuade me. I just…I don’t know. It’s just…”

He stared at his hands and seemed unable to go on. She sipped on her coffee and waited for him to collect his thoughts.

“I thought he would be back sooner. I thought the whole reason behind going was to wrap his head around what happened and to take a break from stuff like this and it just sounds like he’s been in it all over again. Why not just come home if it was no different there?”

She hesitated. “It’s not really my place but…just know that it isn’t as simple as leaving to avoid the supernatural, or even avoiding it while he was abroad. A lot of damage was done that can’t be undone in Beacon Hills. And he didn’t exactly have much time to process coming home in the first place. I had only run into him the afternoon before we caught the plane back. I think he just needs some time…”

“I want to give it to him. Honestly, I do. But a part of me wonders why two years wasn’t time enough?”

She opened her mouth to reply but was interrupted by the front door opening and closing.

“I’m going to go…” John grimaced, “I don’t know, _elsewhere_.”

He got up and left through the back door just as Stiles was entering the kitchen. He frowned but otherwise ignored the departure.

“What’s all that?” Lydia asked as he unloaded two brimming grocery bags onto the table.

“Salt,” he replied, starting to empty his pockets of vials and jars as well. “And a few other things. Wait here.”

She obliged as he ran up to his bedroom and returned a moment later with an impressive looking mortar and pestle.

“Do you carry that thing around in your bag all the time?” she asked incredulously.

It was made of marble and felt heavy just looking at it.

“Between stops, yeah,” he said, turning it so she could see the inscriptions carved into the bowl. “It’s full of nifty strengthening enchantments.”

She began to unpack the bags of salt, twelve in total, and cleared her throat expectantly when the silence had drawn on.

“Right,” Stiles sighed. “Look, I’m sorry for snapping at you earlier. Dick move, I know. I’m just…I’m a little on edge right now so a little confidence in my know-how would go a long way. It’s not like I spent all that time with my thumb up my – ”

“Okay!” she interrupted. “No need for the mental image.”

He grunted in a way that may have been a chuckle, Lydia wasn’t sure.

“Cut your dad some slack, Stiles. He wasn’t attacking you earlier. And he’s not in your head, he doesn’t understand what’s happened to you. He won’t unless you talk to him.”

His shoulders stiffened and she opted for taking a step back on the whole father-son portion of this clusterfuck.

“You need to cut us a break too, you know,” she warned, but her tone was lighter and less serious. “This new Badass Stiles thing is going to take some getting used to.”

With his back to her he seemed to collect himself. “I have _always_ been a badass.”

And just like that the ice began to thaw by small but steady increments. She rolled her eyes. “Whatever, Stilinski. What are we making here anyway?”

From his waistband he retrieved his notebook and opened it about halfway through. Tapping on the page he pushed it towards her.

“A protection spell for the house. I’ll make sure to do it at Scott’s place and wherever else later, but if we’re meeting here tonight I’d like to prevent witch induced arson if possible.”

“So the symbols on the house…?”

“Useless until I give them a jumpstart,” he wriggled his fingers. “Still, they’ll only hold malevolent… _anythings_ off for so long. I have to put up another wall of defense. Which will actually be pretty helpful against anything else that comes to town.”

“Hence the spices and…where did you get these teeth?”

He coughed. “I borrowed them…in a permanent kind of way. It doesn’t matter! Do me a favour and measure out these vials according to the recipe there…”

 

* * *

 

           

By the time the pack started to arrive (alone or in pairs), Stiles had already smeared his powder/oil concoction around the four identical runes Lydia had graphitized onto the corners of the house and detonated the spells, so to speak.

Now, he was holed up in his bedroom trying not to be sick.

There were voices rising from the living room below and his stomach did a flip, and then threatened to do much worse. Scott was down there. And Kira, Isaac, and possibly Derek too (he thought he’d heard a non-committal grunt at one point). They’d been there for a solid fifteen minutes and pretty soon he’d have to go down and face them.

It was becoming a little hard to breathe…

There was a tap on his door and, without waiting for an invitation, Lydia entered.

“Alright, time to come down.”

She had a no-nonsense look on her face but he knew it was for show because she waited (albeit arms crossed, foot tapping) for him to remember how to inhale again.

“Lydia, I – ”

“Scott can smell your anxiety from downstairs,” she interrupted. “If you don’t come down I can’t stop him from coming up.”

She sat down beside him on his bed and stared him down. In a kinder voice she said, “It will be _fine_. Remember, you’re a total badass who knows what’s up. Look at you, you wear a leather Derek-jacket now.”

He snorted. “You’re the worst.”

“Yeah well, I’m also losing patience. So you can go down the easy way or the hard way. You’re choice.”

There was a joke there. A dirty one that made him think of being mostly naked in a hotel room making out with her, post-shower…

He flushed.

“Let’s go.”

He followed her out, feeling crush beneath the weight of so many things unsaid with these people. But when they reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped into the living room, it wasn’t to a wall of judgmental loathing like he’d been expecting. It was to Scott wrapping him in the tightest hug the werewolf could manage, and a chorus of “welcome homes” and “good to have you backs” from the rest. Even Derek gave him a curt nod of greeting.

When Scott finally released him, Stiles could see they were all a little worse for wear. Malia and Derek stood off to the side looking pale and worn, while Kira, Isaac, Scott and even Deaton had all clearly been fighting.

To their credit, no one made mention of his altered appearance either. He was suddenly very glad to be wearing his leather jacket if only because it covered more of the incriminating evidence of his escapades abroad. The thought of it all was leaving him feeling uncomfortably guilty under the puppy dog eyes of his best friend. He glanced around for someone that wasn’t Scott to occupy his thoughts.

His gaze drifted over the Malia.

If he was being honest, he was a little shocked that she had stuck around. She hadn’t been terribly interested in the Beacon Hills pack life when they’d last met. Stiles took an uncomfortable moment to acknowledge that the last time he’d really been alone with her, they’d been sympathy fucking on a less than sanitary couch in the basement of an archaic mental health facility. Both for the first time and immediately followed by being attacked, held hostage, and possessed on his part. In case it hadn’t been weird enough. She caught his eye now and looked away, almost disinterested in his reappearance.

Right.

“So…Witches?” he opened.

The abrupt segue had the effect he’d been hoping for (or maybe Lydia had already given them a bit of background as to what he’d been up to) because the desire to question him about Europe seemed to be replaced by the need to fully regroup. Everyone, including his dad, found a seat to sink into or a wall to lean against.

“They rolled into town yesterday, no warning,” Scott said, glancing over at Derek and Malia. “They ambushed Peter and Deaton. Peter didn’t make it.”

Stiles bit back the urge to dryly ask if they were sure this time, but only because Malia looked as though she might be sick. His dad, however, asked how it had happened and while the conversation continued on about the subsequent fires, Kira seemed to sense his confusion.

Leaning in, she said under her breath, “We found out Peter was Malia’s dad a while back. Her real dad.”

For once Stiles was actually speechless.

“We think the Nemeton is what drew them to town,” Scott was saying, “and the fact that Beacon Hills is protected by a pack seems to only make them crazier. They’ve been on our asses all day. This is the first time we’ve had a chance to regroup and breathe.”

“What do they want?” John asked.

“With Witches, it’s always about power,” Stiles said when Scott didn’t seem to have an answer. “They sort of… _imbibe_ it. They’re basically magical jedi’s so they don’t need things like talismans like Druids do, but their power is still measured by strength. They like to suck off the supernatural world,” John shot him a look of warning and Isaac covered a laugh with a very unconvincing cough, “in order to buff up. It’s like taking steroids. My guess is they heard Beacon Hills had a True Alpha. That sort of thing is like a supernatural delicacy to their kind.”

The pack was openly staring.

“Learn a lot while you were abroad?” Derek gruffed with a raised brow.

Stiles cleared his throat. “A bit.”

After an awkward silence, Scott turned to Deaton. “How do we fight them? I couldn’t even get close enough the last time.”

Deaton, for all his mysterious know-how looked a little lost to Stiles. The older man cleared his throat and swept a hand over his perspiring face.

“This isn’t like the Durach, Scott. Witches…they’re supernatural creatures down to their DNA. They aren’t human at all. You can’t be turned into one, and it’s not something that can be cured. And while this particular coven appears to be especially vicious, their breed is not generally known for banality.”

Stiles jumped in again. “Maybe not, but not all covens are made up of power crazed nut jobs. There are a few docile sects in Italy, and one or two in Northern Ireland. I mean, don’t get me wrong – you wouldn’t want to piss them off either but they aren’t prone to attack unless threatened.”

Again with the silence.

“I mean, I’m just saying.”

Deaton was eyeing him strangely. “Do _you_ know how to fight them?”

“Well, I uh…” he rubbed the back of his neck. His fingers touched on a particularly ragged claw mark that had ripped through the scars left by Scott two years prior, only to create a more savage set. Witch’s claws. “Yeah, I do. But brute strength isn’t going to cut it. Not up close anyway. The thing with Witches is that you have to fight fire with fire, uh, figuratively; magic with more magic. But you have to make sure there’s nothing around for them to draw on in order to make sure they don’t get the upper hand. Which will only get you so far because they have natural abilities too that won’t be affected by anything a Druid can do.” He paused and read the room. They were all listening raptly, though he could tell they were bursting with questions. “They didn’t come here looking for a fight – they came looking for a slaughter the likes of which none of you have ever seen. They won’t stop until every supernatural being in Beacon Hills has been butchered. If we don’t stop them it will be carnage…”

Finally, they all seemed to see the hopelessness of the pack’s usual defence tactics.

“Uh, so I picked up a few things that should help, and I have a plan but you might not like it…” 


	6. A Circle Of Salt & Ash

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Look, everything the light touches is Jeff Davis' kingdom. That shadowy bit though? With all the swearing and the original characters? That's mine.

**CHAPTER SIX**

* * *

 

             He was right; most of them hated the plan. Namely because the majority of the pack would only be able to do so much before it called for them to fall back and rely solely on Stiles to finish the job. To bait the coven, corral them, and then leave him to…well he got a bit vague about that last part.

             Lydia wasn’t surprised when Scott objected, and certainly not when John did. But it was Deaton’s silence that worried her most. When Stiles had mention the light B&E to the vet’s apartment, Deaton turned an ashy grey and there was a moment where she saw a mixture of fear and awe in his eyes. Lydia got the very distinct impression that the wards in place at the Emissary’s home should have left Stiles dead or dying. But by the sounds of things, the younger man had simply walked in and out without much trouble.

            Deaton called it a spark, she recalled Stiles saying back in Prague. But it’s more like a solar flare.

            Perhaps he hadn’t been exaggerating.

            Right now the room was a broiling argument that seemed to be everyone against Stiles and she could see him bristling under the din.

            “Does anyone else have a better plan?” she called out, cutting off the latest incredulous response directed at Stiles.

            John turned to her. “You can’t seriously be considering going along with this?”

            Everyone in the room had turned their outrage toward her now, the clamor of their united outcries beginning to damage her calm. She straightened her back and arched an eyebrow. Had they all forgotten who she was since her brief vacation away? When had Lydia fucking Martin become soft to these people?

            “Does anyone have a _better_ plan?” she asked again, this time louder and fixed with a glare. “No? Than I suggest we get moving. But Stiles,” she rounded on him and poked his chest with a very demanding finger, “so help me god, you will do as I say. The _moment_ their guards are down, you call in the rest of the cavalry. We do this together or not at all.”

            His shoulders drooped and he sighed, defeated. “You got it.”

   

* * *

             He’d been lying of course, but Stiles was pretty sure that none of them knew it. The fact was, he thought as he and Lydia walked the perimeter of a wide clearing in the Preserve, if anyone besides him or the Witches were to step inside this salt and mountain ash circle they were currently making, they would be killed almost instantly. If the combined power of a coven and a Druid trapped behind the closed barrier could fry the blood out of a human’s veins, it would be near-fatal agony for the weres. But the pack had not wanted to hear it, so Stiles had let them think they could help.

             Scott and the others were happy enough to act as bait in order to corral the Witches to this spot in the forest, but beyond that they were all about ripping and tearing in close contact combat. Which would also only do to get them all killed.

             He grumbled as he tripped over _another_ tree root in the dark hours of dawn and then took a long and steady breath. This was probably, most definitely suicide. He considered the claw marks on his neck and the docile Witch sect from Ireland he’d mention earlier. He was only alive because the Witch, Soirse, had intervened on his behalf against a coven that wanted her territory. If she hadn’t, Stiles and Ramona would have been brownish red stains in a non-descript cave somewhere in Magherabeg.

             What he was hoping to achieve tonight was _experimental_ to say the least. As in, he’d only ever seen the magic done on a scale so small it could fit into his back pocket. He was literally pulling this solution out of his ass and hoping for the best.

             The problem was, he had wracked his brains the whole flight back to the States and this was the only thing he’d come up with. And the thing (the _most important_ thing) was that Scott, Lydia, and the others would be safe. He could only guess that they weren’t dead yet because these sadistic bitches liked to play with their food. That particular comparison made Stiles queasy. Soon _he_ would be their only meal option…

             He and Lydia met where the circle was meant to be joined and left it open by about three feet. He would spell shut once the enemy was well within. He walked to the center of the clearing and dug into his pocket, pulling out a rusty-orange carnelian stone. He was loath to part with it (it had been a gift), but he needed to use it. He whispered the incantation and buried it in a shallow hole.

             “What was that?” Lydia asked, pulling him to his feet.

            “Some backup. It’s a rock coated with the same oil mixture and spells on the wards at the house. I’ll be able to use it to center myself, like an anchor, but the spells are useless to the Witches. To them it’s just a rock.” He shrugged. “Not much power in a rock if you don’t know where to look.”

             There was a pause and he realized she was still holding onto his hand.

             “I’m not your anchor?”

          They shared a look that was the build up of many shared, missed, and misguided looks, before Stiles pulled away from her. He gestured to where the salt and mountain ash lay next to invisible around them under the night sky.

             “Not in here, you can’t be.”

             She opened her mouth as if to protest but at that moment there was a howl, signalling the pack’s harried chase. Stiles grabbed her hand, pulled her out of the clearing and pushed her into a crevice made by a boulder and a fallen tree. He then ducked away and hid close by.

             As they waited he looked to the sky and called on a storm.

  

* * *

  

              Wind was whipping the trees into a frenzy and Lydia almost forgot it wasn’t just unseasonable weather until she peaked out and saw Stiles’ lips moving as he looked up to the sky. This was another diversion tactic, he’d explained. To throw the Witches off the pack’s scent once they were near enough to the trap.

            “Magrit, I have one!”

            The youngest looking of the hideous trio called out to their leader as she chased Isaac into the clearing. Two more women flashed past Lydia, oblivious to her presence, and followed their sister into Stiles’ snare. From somewhere behind them all, Lydia heard the familiar howls of the pack cut through the storm as they began closing in from all sides.

              And there went Stiles, rushing past her hiding place, sprinting faster than she’d ever seen him do during any lacrosse game. She might have shouted out his name, but any noise she made was instantly lost in the shrieking winds that tore through the Preserve. She shot a look back at Scott who was the first to arrive, as he rushed forward in hot pursuit. From her place of safety she watched the scene unfold, a dreadful pressure rising from her diaphragm until it stuck in her throat.

              Stiles reached the clearing first, and instead of keeping the circle open for the others to come in when he needed, he turned and threw a handful of salt and mountain ash to the ground. He struck out with a flat palm just as Scott reached him. The werewolf seemed to hit an invisible barrier, noted only by the brief sizzling of electric currents where his body struck. The salt and mountain ash circle had been closed.

              “Stiles! What are you doing?!”

              Stiles gave him a brief pained look before turning to face the three creatures that were creeping out of the tree line opposite to him. Once they realized what he’d done, they had given up the chase for Isaac.

              “Stiles! STILES!” Scott pounded his fists against the barrier, shouting and swearing but Stiles did not look back at him.

              That was when Lydia noticed the wind. It had died down completely except for where Stiles and the witches stood, hair and clothing whipping about them violently. The magic being produced by both Druid and Witches was being held within the force field. She could only hope that Isaac had made it out the other side before the circle had been closed.

  

* * *

  

            “You are not the lycan. You are not the Alpha.”

            The one the others had called Magrit stared him down with a look of pure contempt, furious that they had been caged.

            “Nope, can’t say that I am,” he said with a lazy shrug.

            Her eyes narrowed and she cocked her head to the side. “But you _are_ strong. Is this your doing?”

            She gestured to the invisible force field he’d placed around them.

            “Well, I don’t like to brag,” he shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked back onto his heels, “but yeah, you bet your broom-bruised ass it is.”

            Magrit leered at him. “I am going to rip the head from your shoulders and drink the fluid from your spine.”

            “Wow, you did not segue into that at _all_.”

            She tossed back her head and let out a bloodcurdling shriek that was followed by the cries of her two sisters.

            Apparently the pleasantries were over.

            Before he could react, the light haired witch to Magrit’s right reached out toward him and clenched her fist. Stiles’ chest tightened and his heart felt as though it was simultaneously expanding _and_ being crushed in her clawed hand. He cried out and collapsed to the ground. He gasped. This was new – one for the book even. It was surprising, really, in an I-might-actually-die-from-this sort of way.

All three creatures seemed to delight in his pain but they did not move any nearer to him.

            Which was fine, because he didn’t actually need them to.

            Through the bitch-induced cardiac arrest, Stiles found the power of the buried carnelian stone and pulled energy from the land within the salt and mountain ash circle; from the grass, from the trees, hell even from the dirt and earthworms. Not to mention the storm, pre-built and ready to go. It all came to him through the anchored sturdiness of the stone.

              Life.

              It always came down to life so he sucked it dry.

            

* * *

            

            Lydia watched in fascinated horror as the colour seemed to bleed out of the clearing, until what once was green and lively was wretched and dead. She watched as it all slowly leeched away towards Stiles, where he had fallen rigidly to his knees - hand clutching painfully at his chest.

            She was vaguely aware of the rest of the pack slowly emerging from the shelter of the trees to watch with her at the force field’s edge. Scott grabbed her hand and they held on to each other in terror.

  

* * *

  

            They knew he was doing it, but they didn’t seem to understand what _it_ was. Magrit snarled like a caged animal as she watched the grass beneath her feet dry up, and the Witch to her left cried out as a now-dead tree cracked at its rotted base and came crashing down nearby.

            By now Blondie’s clutching grasp on his heart was doing nothing to pain him, though Stiles knew the damage was already done. He stood up and took a deep breath. The world within the force field pulsated with it. Along his ribcage and over the plains of his shoulders, tattoos burned feverishly to maintain his hold on the power. Had he not been breathing in pure unadulterated life, he would have been writhing on the ground in unbearable pain.

            But for now, Stiles was a vessel and felt nothing.

            In the space of a detached and cold blink, Blondie’s neck was snapped. She fell in a heap to the ground causing Magrit to cry out, but she made no move to attack. Stiles glanced to the third Witch. She was edging away but not from him. She was distancing herself from Magrit. She seemed younger than the others – a rookie in the coven life maybe, still unsure of her leader’s motivations. He could see the unease and fear etched into her miserable face.

            “You’re not welcome in Beacon Hills,” he said to her; _just_ to her. The booming power in his voice could be felt by each of them. “When you leave, make sure you stay gone. And spread the word: this town belongs to the Alpha lycan Scott McCall and is under the protection of a pissed off Druid. Anyone who thinks of attacking us won’t be as lucky as your friend.” He nodded to Blondie’s corpse. “This is the only reason I’m letting you live, understood?”

            She managed a nod.

            “GO!”

            She shot off away from him, through the deadened trees. When he felt (rather than saw) her reach the circle’s edge, the barrier dropped for a moment to let her through before it was once again raised to full strength.

            All in the space of a blink.

            Magrit glared at him now, her mouth twisted in disgust. “You are a _child_ playing with fire. You think that killing one of us will stop me from ripping you to shreds? From slaughtering your pack and drinking the blood of the Alpha?” She barked with wicked laughter and he couldn’t help but see the cliché. “You are already dead, boy. Senistra saw to that.”

            “You talk a big game lady, but I gotta say: so far it’s been pretty disappointing. Not to mention your posse has dipped. Got any _real_ moves left?”

            He knew he should probably tone it down but the thing about Stiles (the thing that no amount of being away could ever change) was that he was a smartass down to his very bones. He raised his brows expectantly.

            “Well?”

            Magrit barred her teeth and hissed before lunging forward.

  

* * *

  

            “STILES!”

            Malia’s cry rang out in the stillness of the Preserve but Lydia barely heard her over the ringing in her own ears. Beside her the pack stood in a line, all as close to the force field as they dared to get.

            All watching helplessly.

            Magrit had shot out and tackled Stiles to the ground with such force that Lydia could see the ground ripple around them. From where she stood, some fifteen feet away, they looked like two feral cats tearing at each other in the deadened grass of the clearing. Bright lights flashed in the closed spaced between them, but it was impossible to see who was doing what. On top of all this, Stiles looked to be throwing punches, elbows, and knees into the mix. And pretty competently at that.

            Magrit, being no match for close hand-to-hand skirmishing, seemed to be struggling. Lydia saw her manage to flip Stiles onto his back only to be sent flying over his head by one well-placed kick to her stomach. He rolled backward with her until _he_ was straddling _her_. The force of each connection was like a concentrated earthquake that the others could see but not feel.

            “Where did he learn to do that?”

            She spared a quick glance to Isaac who was now standing beside her. “He’s been busy.”

  

* * *

  

            He had to let go of the power or soon it would burn through his very capillaries to escape him. The problem with taking all that natural magic into his system was how to get rid of it without killing himself in the process.

            Further to the point, Magrit was not making matters easy for him. For every physical strike he sent her way, she blasted him with her own magic. And whenever he responded in kind, their proximity meant that he felt the damage too. Or would when this was all over.

            “What?” she seethed, face practically pushed against his in the struggle. “Did you suck the land dry for nothing, _boy_?!”

            The tattoos on his palms burned as he pressed them against her face. She managed to get her hands around his throat and squeezed. He could feel the hot blood begin to flow from where her claws dug into the skin. And in a moment of exaggerated slowness and breathlessness, where he felt the world slow down to the length of a single heartbeat, Stiles dragged his eyes away from her murderous gaze and looked past her.

              The pack was standing beyond the invisible wall, watching with pale horror. And it struck him then that this might be recompense for all the death – for all the pain he had once caused. Doing this for them, saving them from the vicious deaths that Magrit’s coven would have wrought, might save a small part of his soul that had remained in the hands of the Nogitsune after all this time. Somewhere in the blurring oxygen deprived background he thought he saw (or perhaps just _felt_ ) the Nemeton, its roots stretching out to meet him in this instant.

              Just like in his dreams...

              As the pressure around his throat increased, Stiles knew what he needed to do and focused all his energy into that miserable stump before simply letting it _go_ …

  

* * *

  

_“It’s about Life. Take too much in and you can burn what’s yours right out of you. But in small doses it’s manageable.”_

_Lorek held a small rust-coloured rock in the flat of his palm and took a slow breath. Moss began to creep out from the stone’s flat surface until it was thoroughly covered in it._

_“Give it. Take it…”_

_Inhale._

_The moss blackened and rotted away._

_Exhale._

_“It’s about balance…”_

_The lush green sprouted back into being._

_“Taking too much will kill you.”_

_He handed the mossy rock to Stiles who took it gently and ran a thumb over the soft spongy growth._

_“And what is the one thing that I ask of you?”_

_Stiles looked up into those grey, hard eyes._ _“Don’t die."_


	7. Revenge Of The Giving Tree

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Seven chapters in and it looks like I still don't own much of anything.

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

* * *

  

A rush of light blossomed from between Stiles and the Witch and rushed outward in every direction. Isaac pulled Lydia down at the very last moment as it tore through the force field, blinding them all with its vibrancy.

When she came to, her ears were ringing and there were spots in her eyes. Scott was shaking her and calling her name. Giving her head a shake, she sat up and brushed him away from her.

She was soaking wet; they all were. The sky, which should have been brightening with the dawn, had darkened considerably in the short moment she had been knocked out. It was pouring rain and despite the chill, her body was buzzing faintly as if recovering from an electric shock. By the mildly uncomfortable looks on everyone’s faces, the rest of the pack was feeling it too.

The others seemed to be no worse for wear (their were-kitsune-whatever-ness making them built of sturdier stuff than Lydia) and were already on their feet. Scott, Isaac, and Kira watched her with worry while Derek and Malia were inspecting a wall of foliage that had not been there before.

“What is it?” she asked, raising her voice to be heard over the din of the rain.

“After the barrier fell this all grew in seconds,” Derek answered. Giving her a once over he asked, “Alright?”

“Fine,” she moved to inspect the wall closer and saw that it reached at least to the tops of the trees. “This had to have been Stiles.”

Isaac whistled, impressed. “I didn’t know he had it in him.”

Scott turned to Derek. “Have you ever seen Deaton do anything like this?”

Derek looked uneasy. “I don’t think Deaton _can_ do anything like this, Scott.”

He tried to brush aside some of the foliage but it was entirely too thick to manage. And then all at once they all came to the same horrifying conclusion.

Stiles was somewhere inside of all this.

“We have to get him out of there!” Lydia demanded and the pack seemed to fly into action.

But even as the werewolves and Malia clawed at the underbrush with their hands, and even as Kira carved away at it with her sword, Lydia could not help but think…

Would Stiles be alive even if they managed it?

 

* * *

  

_“Mieczysław!”_

It wasn’t his mother’s voice calling out his name that dragged him into consciousness, but rather the blood in his throat that he coughed up in order to suck in air. Breathing laboriously, Stiles painfully raised his head to see…

Nothing. Nothing but the lush green and browns of new vegetation inches away from his nose where there had been none before. It was raining too, the cool droplets finding their way through the foliage to soak through his hair and clothes.

Thunder rolled in the distance.

At that point, all the pain that his magic had been suppressing in the fight began to seep in until there was no discerning one source from the next. It writhed within him and he cried out weakly, blood dribbling down his chin. With no more strength to hold his head up, Stiles let it drop and saw what was holding him upright.

He thought he could make out a tree. Rather, the lower half of a _fucking goddamn actual tree,_  the rest of which was making use of his fucking stomach as a terrarium. A part of his brain (the stupid yet persistent part) couldn't help but make a sadistic sort of Revenge Of The Giving Tree comparison. One that he was sure even Shel Silverstein would appreciate. 

That was when world began to spin.  

_“Mieczysław!”_

“Mom?”

_“Mieczysław!”_

Her voice sounded just how he last remembered it (broken and riddled with panic) and he could feel hot tears mixing with the cool rain on his face.

“Mom…h-help m…me…”

He coughed again and thought his chest cavity must be splitting in two.

“…help…”

  

* * *

“Stiles! STILES!”

Their voices sounded muffled, stifled by the dense undergrowth and the rain.

Scott held up a hand to silence everyone. Lydia watched impatiently as he turned his head slightly. How he could hear anything through the downpour was a mystery to her.

Whatever magic Stiles had just done seemed to have brought on the storm of the century. She could barely see through the torrential rain.

“It’s him! It has to be! Kira, here but carefully!”

The kitsune carefully carved the path in the direction that Scott was indicating. Behind them, the rest of the pack widened it with their claws. The forest had grown so thick in what had been the clearing that they had begun to worry about cutting Stiles with either the blade or their claws upon finding him.

Derek was the first one to spot him, calling for Kira to stop just in time. At first Lydia thought the thick growth was all that was holding him up, but when she pushed to the front of the group she gasped into her hand. A thin sapling had punctured his side in its hasty growth and was sticking out of his back. Others had simply grown around him and were supporting his limp body in a pseudo-standing position.

“Stiles, oh my god…”

He didn’t respond.

That dreaded pressure in her rose and she clamped both hands over her mouth, tears spilling over as she stumbled away from his motionless form.

“Lydia?”

She pushed past Scott, shaking her head frantically.

“He’s still got a heartbeat!” Malia shouted, but Lydia’s Banshee scream was trying in earnest to escape her.

“Cut him down!” someone yelled.

She staggered away from them all, barely keeping from slipping in the slick mud. She ran back down through the path they had created and then kept going until she reached the rubble of the old Hale house where the cars were parked. Behind her she could hear the stampede of her friends desperately rushing to get to a car. Just as they came upon her, Lydia knew she could hold it in no longer.

She turned and looked Scott in the eye, Stiles cradled awkwardly in his arms, before releasing a bloodcurdling scream.

 

* * *

  

He came to, gasping and choking on the pain. His heart felt like it was constricting within his chest and every nerve ending was on fire. He cried out as white spots clouded his vision, only vaguely aware that Lydia’s face had just been inches away from his. The pain was more intense than any he had ever experienced.

He relaxed only momentarily when several hands were pressed flatly against any reachable bare skin and warmth spread where the pain had been. But there were cries of shock and the hands were snatched away. Only one pair remained, cradling his head.

  

* * *

  

The werewolves were all groaning, holding their hands to their chests as if scalded and trying not to be sick. Only Scott had refused to let go of Stiles, whose head was resting in his lap.

Kira had cut the sapling closely from either side of his body, but Lydia feared Stiles lying on his back would make things worse. But he had died; Stiles had _died_. If only for a moment before she had brought him back with chest compressions and the forceful breath of her banshee lungs. But regardless, he had died on them.

Thick blackness was leaching through Scott’s veins at an alarming rate, and his eyes were flashing red as he bit out his own cry of agony. When Stiles’ eyes rolled back and he went limp once more, Lydia pried Scott’s hands away.

“Enough, he’s unconscious again.”

As gingerly as possible they lifted him into the backseat of Derek’s SUV with Lydia and Scott packed in with him, and Isaac in the front with Derek driving. They peeled out of the Preserve and the girls followed closely in the rental.

They had been speeding along for what felt like an eternity but what was probably only minutes when flashing lights filled the rear view mirror.

“Shit,” Derek bit out, but she yelled for him to keep going.

“It’s John! It’s John, keep going!” Isaac shouted, twisting around to see who was driving the cruiser.

Kira or Malia must have called him.

Derek sped up, buoyed by the lights and sirens.

“How much further?!”

The hospital was thankfully on the same side of town as the Preserve, and soon Lydia could see the painfully familiar glow of the Emergency sign. Derek took a hard left and came to a screeching halt outside of the hospital doors.

They could see Melissa and a handful of ER attendants waiting for their arrival. She could kiss Kira and Malia right about now. Lydia was out of the vehicle first, allowing the nurses to pull Stiles out from behind her and onto a gurney. They didn’t ask questions but moved with swift and practiced coordination. She watched helplessly as Stiles was rushed away with John, who had left the cruiser running where it was hastily parked behind the SUV, right on their heels.

            

* * *

  

Square beams of light flashed above him, one by one by one…a world that rushed by while he remained stationary…

He was surrounded by white walls and the smell of antiseptic and…

And, and, and.

Noise…

There was so much noise here and…

A _gony_ everywhere and…

A strangled sort of wailing…

Sudden hands reached out to pin him down.

Had he been moving?

“I’m here buddy! I’m here, son! Just hang in there! Stiles I –!”

His dad’s voice was cut off like a closing door and…

Another taking its place, sweet and soothing…familiar…

“Stiles, sweetheart? Shhh…I’ve got you hon.”

Something was placed over his nose and mouth.

He breathed in euphoric slumber.

“Mom…m-mom…”

_Shhh…Mieczysław, sweetheart…rest…_

So he rested.

           


	8. The Smell Of Blood In Beacon Hills

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW I am so sorry for the wait. This is what happens when you try to write words and things during the last two months of the semester and then college just thoroughly kicks your ass.
> 
> Anywho, disclaimer: I own basically nothing and Jeff Davies may lay claim to all the junk he made first.

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

* * *

  

The pack took over one small waiting room; John pacing back and forth while the rest sank deeper and deeper into the uncomfortable plastic chairs. Derek had been the one to explain what had happened to the Sheriff while Scott was too wrapped up in shock to speak and Lydia feared she might vomit if she attempted an explanation.

She was loath to leave the room in case the doctor came back with news, but her mind kept circling back to that moment when she had been giving Stiles CPR. Her body had gone through the motions of chest compressions and shared breaths, but she hadn’t been able to tear her eyes away from the piece of wood still sticking out of his stomach, wrapped in Isaac’s blood soaked scarf. Lydia’s hands had been bloody as well, having kept pressure on the wound once they’d gotten into the SUV. And now, every time her mind cycled back to the memory of that piece of wood being jarred by her pumping arms, and the blood on her hands, she had to get up to be sick. She’d washed the blood off but it still _felt_ like it was there.

Now, leaving the bathroom for the third time, she saw Melissa speaking quietly to another woman in scrubs. Her hair was frayed and she looked like she’d just been crying.

“That’s the second time he’s called me mom,” she was saying, her voice breaking.

The other nurse pulled her into a tight hug and caught sight of Lydia watching from down the hall. 

She felt her stomach drop. Stiles couldn’t be…

The nurse whispered something and Melissa turned.

“Lydia.”

“Is he –?” Lydia was too afraid to ask any more.

Melissa broke away from the other woman, who left them to it, and hurried over.

“They’re still working on him, hon. The doctors are doing everything they can, I just…” she faltered and ran a shaking hand over her tired face. “I just…”

Lydia moved to comfort her, and instead found herself wrapped in Melissa’s arms. The tears she’d been holding back since leaving the Preserve (or maybe was just too stunned to shed) flowed freely now. They stood like that, Melissa rubbing her back until Lydia felt a little more composed. She stepped out of the embrace and leaned against the wall.

“What _happened_?” the older woman asked, and Lydia was struck by how terrible it must be for Scott’s mother – always jumping into the middle of things when they were at their most chaotic.

“He saved us,” she explained. “We had a plan to deal with the Witches and I think he knew all along it wouldn’t work but…well we wouldn’t listen to him, you know? Everybody wanted to help, and I think he was just trying to keep everyone alive.”

Melissa closed her eyes and sighed. “One of these days Stiles is going to have to include himself on that list of people worth saving.”

Lydia thought back to his outburst in Prague and the look he’d given her moments before the magical blast had happened. Self worth would definitely be a topic of conversation between the two of them if – _when_ – he came out of surgery. She felt like she’s been banking a lot of conversations with him since reuniting, but this time she meant it. She was done with the self-sacrificing bullshit. If that was how he wanted to play it, next time he’d have to bring her right along with him!

Melissa, sensing Lydia’s sudden burst of anger though perhaps not fully understanding it, pulled her into another hug.

“Sweetheart, be angry with him now but try to be understanding later when it counts. I don’t think any of us could stand it if he left again.”

  

* * *

  

He awoke to burning and excruciating pain. It transcended the morphine drip he was vaguely aware of and his waking mind did not stay that way for long. The world faded to black around him in the midst of teal scrubs and concerned eyes.

A pinch to the arm and he was gradually dropped into unconsciousness once more.

  

* * *

  

The painkillers weren’t working on him, and doctors were trying in vain to come up with a solution. Lydia knew from Melissa that Stiles had woken up screaming a few times, causing a great deal of commotion in the ICU. It seemed like there was only one more option to explore and it was up to John to make the final decision.

Either way, there was no guarantee that Stiles would ever recover fully from whatever the Witches had done to him.

More importantly, whatever he had done to himself.

And so Lydia watched as John, looking older and more tired by the day, took a deep breath and slipped behind the curtain that cordoned off his son’s bed.

  

* * *

  

In some muddled, drugged up part of his brain, Stiles was aware of the fact that he could not move. He tried to flex his fingers and toes and felt the weakness of his body protest against such a daunting task. Even opening his eyes was too much. And yet something like molten fire burned through him. It made his body tremble as if it were in shock.

Someone with rough and calloused hands took one of his gingerly.

“Are you trying to kill me?”

He was slow to understand the words.

“God, kid. You can’t do this to me. You can’t die on me, not you too.” For the briefest of moments the grip on his hand tightened slightly. “I could live with you being on the other side of the goddamn world, just knowing you were alive and okay. But _this_? Not if your life is just _this_ every damn day. Not if you come this close to dying every time you wake up in the morning.”

There was a pause.

“It kills me that this happened to you here. It kills me that you came home to more dying. But if you die on me now, I swear I’ll never forgive you. I won’t. I can’t.”

He thought maybe the words continued on, but already the exhaustion of being semi-conscious was draining him, and Stiles slipped into oblivion.

  

* * *

  

When wakefulness happened again, it was the feeling of swallowing sandpaper that roused Stiles. He pried one eye open before squeezing it shut against harsh fluorescent lights. He was distantly aware of the fact that morphine was happening, as was the uncomfortable pinching of tubes in a few places he was okay with and one he really wasn’t. Slowly, very slowly, he opened both eyes – squinting uncomfortably. He turned his head and saw beeping machines, IV’s and other things that placed him, presumably, in Beacon Hills Memorial. A chair sat vacantly beside him and the door to his room was slightly ajar.

He was alone.

A monitor matched his heartbeat in steady beeps.

The last time his body had been here a monster wearing his face had orchestrated a massacre. And he remembered.

The smell of hospital sterility seemed to have undertones of coppery blood.

He remembered even when the two halves had been separated. He’d never told anyone that but it was true.

The steady sound of squeaking sneakers, shuffling feet, and rolling bed wheels could be heard out in the hallway.

Every step the Nogitsune had taken after their separation, every movement and wretched thought it had had while wearing his face like a mask had been cropping up like acid flashbacks since he’d left for London.

His heartbeat picked up a few paces.

He’d spent two years waking up in a cold sweat trying to separate things into what happened _before_ and what had happened _after_. Only now he was waking up to some strange time that felt a lot like _during_.

The beeping increased.

He still wasn’t sure where the hospital fell into the timeline.

He felt around on the bed, his body feeling bizarrely atrophied, and found the call button he knew would be there. It wasn’t long before hurried steps could be heard coming from down the hall.

Melissa appeared; face flushed and a hesitant smile pulling at her lips.

“Stiles, you’re –”

He opened his mouth but only a dehydrated rasp came out.

Jumping to nurse-mode, Melissa poured him and cup of water with a straw and held it up for him to drink. She raised his bed slightly to make the procedure less of a mess and went on to do nurse things like checking him, the machines, him again, and oh – also him.

Her practiced nurse/patient routine calmed him slightly.

The last thing he remembered was looking toward Lydia beyond the magical barrier…

“The others?” he managed to ask, the water only having done so much to soothe his throat. He was trying desperately to put swords, demons, and the Oni out of his mind but the antiseptic smell of the hospital and the familiar white walls only seemed to press harder on him.

“They’re fine, all of them,” she reassured him with a soft maternal smile. “Not even a scratch.”

“Where…?”

“Your dad is at work, but I’ll call him back right away. And I’m pretty sure Lydia is coming by today.”

But Stiles wasn’t listening anymore. He’d caught sight of a small patch of his chest, barely visible above the low collar of his hospital gown. Fleshy pink lines, not unlike the chaotic roots of a tree, were spread across his pale skin. He turned his arm and saw that they had spread there too. In a panic, he sluggishly pulled down the neck of the gown so that he could get a clearer look. The Lichtenberg lines were spread out interrupting tattoos, old scars, and the constellation of freckles that had always been dappled across his chest.

His fingers tapped anxiously against the marks. The last time he’d had the lines was in Eichan House when the Nogitsune had been…when it had…

“Stiles, you have to stay calm, your heart –!”

His body shook as he gulped in air, pulling at the hospital gown and groaning. When he sat up off the bed pain flashed through his side and he moaned but didn’t stop. Melissa was trying to grab his wrists, but in a burst of adrenalin he pushed her hands away and began to pull out the IV’s. He needed air. He needed to get out of this fucking mortuary.

Scott’s mom, having not spent an indiscriminate amount of time unconscious in a hospital bed, was much stronger than Stiles and she easily pushed him back down. He was distantly aware that she was speaking but the words were lost to him in his terror.

“Stiles stop.”

The voice cut through the panic; a sweet soprano being breathed into his ear.

“Hold your breath.”

He couldn’t stop trying to suck in air.

“Hold your breath and it will pass.”

He just couldn’t.

A low keening sound like that of an injured animal escaped him inadvertently.

Something like warmth seemed to spread through his veins and gradually his heart slowed and air made its way to his lungs. Panting, he turned his attention to Melissa who was massaging his forearm where one IV remained.

 _A sedative_ , a coherent part of his brain supplied.

Lydia was sitting beside him on the bed, smoothing his hair away from his forehead and shushing to him softly like a child.

He’d be a little insulted if he weren’t so goddamn exhausted.

“What happened?” she asked him quietly.

He pulled the neck of the gown down once more with a hand that still trembled to show her.

“They’re back,” he panted, but his voice sounded distant and so did hers.

“It’s not the same.”

But if she said more he didn’t hear it.

* * *

  

Lydia watched as Melissa cleaned up the mess of IV drips and other tubes and wires Stiles had disrupted during his panic attack.

“I thought he would be a lot more out of it when he came around,” she said quietly, carding her fingers through his hair.

“That wasn’t _out of it_?”

“No,” she replied simply. “That was about these.”

She traced the Lichtenberg lines along his forearm. Deaton had speculated that they were a byproduct of the magical blast and the doctors were assuming they were caused by a lightning strike which was what the pack had told them. The running story was that Stiles had been caught in the storm, struck by lightning and run through with the branch of a tree felled by the squall. Stranger things had happened in Beacon Hills so no one had really questioned it.

“The last time he had these he signed himself into Eichan House and ended up getting a demon locked into his head. He’s been running away from the Nogitsune all this time, and I think waking up _here_ and seeing _these_ was just too much for him.”

They both watched him in silence for a moment. He looked small and sickly lying like that in the hospital bed. But unlike the week preceding today his cheeks were flushed and he appeared to be sleeping rather than dead (which was how Lydia had been seeing him up until now).

“I get so angry at him,” she said, almost to herself, “for caring so little about saving himself. And then I see him like this, and I wonder: if we all had just paid a little more attention to him – if we had all stopped to see that he wasn’t acting like himself in the beginning – maybe _we_ could have prevented any of this from happening.”

“You couldn’t have known, Lydia. Even John didn’t.”

She turned to Melissa, now fierce. “I could have. We _all_ could have. He didn’t want us to see he was struggling (he never does), but his friends should have been paying attention to him anyway. We should have been with him instead of forgetting about him. The Nogitsune chose us as much as it chose him. It chose us because it knew we’d worry about ourselves and everyone else except Stiles. And it was right.”

She stood in a huff and made to leave the room but stopped at the door.

Lydia wondered at herself. It seemed these days that she couldn’t keep a single emotion in check for the life of her. She’d been flip flopping between being guilty with herself or angry at Stiles ever since Prague. There didn’t seem to be a happy medium and she worried that she’d never find one.

“I’ll let John and everyone else know he’s woken up.”

Leaving the stifling walls of the hospital, Lydia stopped at her car and took a few shaky breaths, relief finally washing over her in the midst of her clashing sentiments. He had woken up! He was ok and he had woken up!

The doctors hadn’t been sure he would. They’d induced the coma on the grounds that the inexplicable amount of pain he was experiencing while conscious was beyond anything they could properly treat while safely addressing his other injuries. Then again most of his medical state was beyond what they could explain. He’d had a severe heart attack (something they’d attributed to the electrical currant of the lightning), and the Lichtenberg lines were fairly extensive. These boggled the minds of his doctors too, given that they should have faded days ago. Lydia figured he’d have them for a while. And for the first few days in the ICU he’d been prone to fits and seizures, though those appeared to have tapered off. There was also a question of long-term neuropathic damage, but time would tell with that.

In fact the only thing that seemed to make sense to the hospital staff was where the tree had run Stiles through. It was just an ordinary puncture wound that was healing in an ordinary way, with predictably ordinary slowness. Every time she’d seen a nurse check on it, they’d gotten a strangely proud and reaffirming look on their face. Lydia supposed the whole staff must have found it reassuring.

Having caught her breath, she got into her car and dialed John’s cellphone number. He had gone back to work, if only because Stiles had needed a second surgery to deal with issues untreatable during the first. It was his heart; it was weak. But the cost of all the hospital care was beginning to mount, and he’d had no choice but to return to the station.

“Lydia, is anything wrong?”

“No, no – it’s good news, really. He woke up, Stiles woke up.”

“I’ll be right there!”

“Sheriff, wait! You don’t have to rush over; he’s asleep now. He um…well…”

She hated to spoil the hopefulness in John’s voice.

“What happened?” he asked, sounding resigned.

“A panic attack. Melissa had to sedate him. He’ll be out for a while again.”

There was a moment of silence that seemed to stretch out forever. When John spoke again, his voice was tired.

“I’ll be right there.”

  

* * *

  

It had taken a few times waking up in the hospital before he could stand to be there without having a full blown mental break down. Stiles must have said something about the smell during one of his more coherent attacks because Melissa and his dad had packed his room with bouquets that filled the space with a floral aroma ever since.

It helped.

He was still terribly exhausted and tired easily, making him prone to long and deep sleeps. But coming back to consciousness was easier now that the first thing he noticed was the smell of life rather than the absence of it.

He’d been at the hospital for two straight weeks so far – out of the coma for about four days running. And yet the only people he’d seen were his dad and Melissa when she was on shift. He hadn’t seen Lydia since waking up, and Scott hadn’t been to see him at all. His dad had reassured him that the whole pack had been in and out while he’d been recovering, but the topic of their absence now was widely skirted around and avoided.

It was the fifth night of his being out of the coma around midnight, that he woke up to see Malia standing awkwardly at the foot of his bed eyeing him strangely.

He may have reacted to her sudden appearance with some subtle flailing.

“Uh, hey,” he ventured when she said nothing.

She scowled a little. “I woke you up.”

It wasn’t a question.

Stiles sat up in his bed a little gingerly (he still ached in the gut and chest regions) and raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, uh…don’t worry about it. What’s um, what’s up?”

There was something in the way expressions seemed to rest on her face that was both open and closed at the same time. He found it oddly reassuring. She kept her back to the wall and her front to the closed door. Stiles figured the coyote part of her was probably still dominant over the human part, even after all this time.

“The others haven’t been coming here.”

Again with the not-a-question commentary. Stiles stiffened and scowled slightly; he didn’t really appreciate the reminder.

“Yeah, and?”

She frowned at his tone. “I don’t understand why, and no one will talk about it.”

He sighed. “Why did _you_ come then?”

“You saved us and you killed the Witches.” She said it like it was the simplest thing in the world. “I think the others might be angry because you didn’t follow the plan, but it wasn’t a very good one anyway. It wouldn’t have worked.”

Stiles stared at her for a moment and wondered if maybe Malia understood things a little better than Scott and the others. She didn’t seem tied down by sentiment or social conventions like everyone else. Her dark eyes flicked back and forth from his, waiting for him to speak.

“Are they okay? Really okay?” he asked, having worried despite his dad’s and Melissa’s reassurances.

“Yes. You smell upset.”

“Yeah, I guess I am. But not about that, I’m happy they’re all alright.”

“We can have sex if you want.”

Stiles choked on nothing. “What? No! No uh…no thank-you. Um, uhh, why would you of-offer that exactly?”

She shrugged. “It made you feel better last time.”

Stiles swallowed hard, thoughts of Lydia in Prague running rampant in his head. “That’s not…we were just…”

Malia was nonplused.

“Okay. Isaac might not like it anyway,” she narrowed her eyes. “I can never tell…”

The statement was a tiny reminder of all the ways life in Beacon Hills had kept moving forward while he’d been away. He sighed.

“Can you do something for me?”

“Depends if I want to.”

Her tone wasn’t hostile, just honest.

Stiles snorted. “Okay, well if you _want to_ can you let Scotty know I want to see him. I need to see him.”

Malia shrugged. “Okay.”

She made to leave but Stiles stopped her. “Malia?”

“Stiles?”

“Why didn’t you come during the day? During visiting hours?”

She seemed to be looking past the door and into the empty hallway. She looked a little wilder, like she was remembering something from before being turned back into a girl. “It’s too busy around here in the daytime. There are too many people who I have to pretend around. It’s exhausting. I prefer Beacon Hills alone and at night.”

With that she left, and Stiles settled back into his pillows.

“Fair enough,” he murmured.

  

* * *

  

“So nobody’s been to see him?”

It was strange to be getting the heavily browed eye of disproval from Derek. He gave it to everyone else all the time, but generally Lydia managed to avoid it.

The pack, all but for Scott, was sitting in Derek’s loft and it had come up fairly quickly that not one of them had been to the hospital in days.

“He and I were never really that close,” Isaac ventured, though he looked a little guilty. “It seems weird to go see him when he’s conscious.”

“Consider the creepiness of that statement,” Kira said gently. When all eyes turned to her, she blushed. “I don’t really know what to say to him. I mean…well…it’s been two years since I talked to him last, and then he almost died! I’ve just been waiting to go with Scott! And…well _you_ haven’t gone either!”

Derek scowled in typical Derek-fashion. “Because Stiles and I aren’t exactly BFF’s. Maybe I’m wrong – which I’m not – but don’t you think he’ll want to see some of the people he came back here to help in the first place? Specifically ones that he likes.”

He was looking right at Lydia by the time he was done speaking.

She frowned under the strain of the all too familiar guilt. She hadn’t been to the hospital since Stiles’ panic attack for the fairly simple reason that she wasn’t sure how she’d react once she got there. There was an all too real possibility that she would lose control and tear him a new one for almost getting himself killed. But Melissa’s comment about not wanting him to leave again was weighing heavily on her. What if her very probably anger pushed him away?

Then again, she’d sort of just assumed that the others had been going this whole time. Thus the crippling shame.

“Where’s Scott?” she asked, deflecting.

“I told him Stiles wanted to see him,” Malia replied without looking up from her phone.

The room was silent.

“You saw him?” Kira finally asked her.

“Yeah. Last night.”

“Well…what did he say?” Lydia prompted. Getting answers out of Malia was notoriously like pulling teeth.

“He wanted me to ask Scott to go see him.” All but Derek squirmed uncomfortably. “And he was upset but he turned down my offer of casual sex to make him feel better.”

Isaac choked on the beer he was drinking. Malia looked up at him briefly before going back to her phone. “I was right about that then.”

“So basically you’ve all been avoiding the guy that saved us all from a terrible slaughter of a death, out of awkwardness?” Derek ventured.

There was an uncomfortable silence before Kira said aloud what everyone was thinking, “We are _terrible_ friends.”

  

* * *

  

“You came really close to dying. You did, actually.”

Stiles had never really seen this side of Scott, or maybe it had just never been directed at him specifically. He was close-faced and wound up tightly like a coil. There were no puppy dog eyes or declarations of brotherhood here now, and Stiles felt cowed by the hardness in his best friend’s demeanor.

It was his Alpha face, Stiles thought.

“We had a plan, Stiles. And you knew from the very beginning that you weren’t going to stick to it. If the pack doesn’t know what’s going to happen, they’re all put at risk.”

He just stared. _If the pack_ …

So not him than? It wasn’t really a surprise but the confirmation hurt nonetheless. He had been gone so long the pack bond between Scott and Stiles had broken up and fallen apart. It was the obvious conclusion to years of ghosting on Stiles’ part. He had, in fact, believed it to be the case for two years now but it was different actually hearing it.

“I did what I did to eliminate the _pack’s_ risk.”

He couldn’t look at Scott when he’d said it, just picked a spot on the wall and focused there instead.

“You _died_.”

Finally Scott’s voice betrayed some sense of fear and even pain. Stiles looked up to see him swiping angrily at the tears in his eyes.

“I couldn’t handle the coven and you had to come home when you didn’t want to. I couldn’t fight them, and you could. I had to listen to Lydia’s scream, and then watch her bring you back. I couldn’t even tell your dad what happened. Derek had to. And then every time I came to see you, you’d be radiating pain so terrible I couldn’t even stand to touch you. I couldn’t help you at all.”

“Scott…”

“What use is an Alpha that can’t do the saving, Stiles?”

They sat in uncomfortable silence for what felt like forever.

“You’ve saved a lot of people over the years Scott,” he finally said. “And you’ve managed to keep your pack alive this long, which is more than I can say for a lot of other Alpha’s out there.”

He was taking the liberty to assume that Peter had left this world as much a power-hungry Omega as ever.

Scott shook his head. “But I couldn’t keep us all together. You left and you chose to cheat death for the sake of strangers instead of coming home to us.”

Scott looked straight into his eyes and Stiles could see the betrayal he felt there.

“Why wouldn’t you just come home?”

Stiles stared at him, open-mouthed with disbelief. “Why do you think? The things I did, the people I hurt. I –!”

“That wasn’t you! That was –!”

“It _was_ me Scott! If it wasn’t me then I why do I still remember every revolting detail? If it wasn’t me, than why do I know all the things _it_ did when we were separated?”

“Stiles…”   

“No, will you just listen to me! You want to know why I stayed away? Because that thing found me here. It found me and tortured me inside my own head, and it made me do terrible things to good people. _And you didn’t notice!_ It was in me long before you ever bothered to see it. And then you finally did and got it out of me, but it never really left. Only, when I was away from Beacon Hills I could at least go about my day without seeing reminders of it _everywhere_. I didn’t have to look at you and remember what it felt like to fucking stab you. Or look at Kira and think of Barrow. Isaac and the electrical short. Hurting Derek, almost getting Malia killed at Eichan. I wouldn’t have to see Lydia and think of Aiden. And what about _Allison_? I didn’t have to be reminded of it by looking at all of you, and you didn’t need the reminder of me being here. It seemed like the best solution to an impossible problem.”

He was lightheaded now from the rant and laid back with closed eyes. His body was trembling and he knew he should be keeping his heart rate steady. He balled his fists into the bed spread when they started to shake painfully. Scott remained silent.

“I came back because I knew they would tear you to shreds if I didn’t. I knew even a True Alpha didn’t stand a chance against their magic. I protected you, not because you’re weak but because they were stronger. But if your ego can’t stand the fact that you’re all alive right now because I _noticed_ , then you don’t have to stick around.”

He didn’t open his eyes, even half figured that Scott had quietly left, when a warm hand grasped his own. He opened his eyes to see the other man standing beside him, puppy dog eyes on full blast and shoulders hunched with guilt.

The fire seemed to have gone out of them both.

“I don’t,” he said quietly. “I don’t see the Nogitsune, or Allison, or any of that other stuff when I look at you. I just see you. I see my brother.”

Stiles sniffed and blinked away tears, manliness be damned. “I hate it here, Scotty.”

“Please don’t. It’s home and it’s ours – the whole pack’s. You belong here with us.”

“I’m not pack.”

“Shut up, okay? Just shut up.”

He bent down and gathered Stiles up in an embrace that was both tight and yet conscientious of his injuries.

“You were pretty badass,” he said after a while into Stiles’ shoulder. “Back in the woods I mean.”

“Thanks Scotty.”

The stayed like that for a moment more until a loud cough came from the other side of the door.

“I’m pretty sure that’s everybody,” Scott grinned sheepishly, straightening up. “Should I let them in?”

Stiles rubbed his face with the blanket and sighed. He was tired, but they were finally here.

He nodded.

  

* * *

  

She’d hung back with Scott while they others visited and chatted with Stiles for a few hours. Scott relayed the conversation they’d had to her out in the hall when they went to hunt down some coffee.

“Is it terrible that I’m happy it was you and not me?” Lydia asked. “Because there was about an 85% chance that I would have bitten his head off too if you hadn’t already.”

“So glad I could help,” he replied dryly.

“To be honest, he said a lot of the same things to me back in Prague. I guess I just wanted him to know that dying was never really an option for him.”

“Maybe you should still tell him that. Just with a little less…”

He struggled to find the right word.

“Alpha face?” she offered.

“What the hell is Alpha face?” he asked, scandalized.

“You know, it’s when you’re trying to be all stoic and stern so that the Betas do as they’re told.”

“I didn’t know that was a thing my face did.”

“Well if it’s any consolation, it doesn’t work on Derek or Malia.”

He grimaced, “I’d be more shocked if it did.”

They made it back to Stiles’ room, coffees in hand, just as the rest of the pack was leaving.

“Is he alright?” she asked anxiously.

“Just tired,” Derek replied, pausing to listen. “He’s still awake though.”

“Right.”

She handed him the coffee tray and opened the door to Stiles’ room. He had his eyes closed but she could tell he was just resting them. She sat down in the empty chair and slipped her hand into his. His eyes fluttered open and they stared at each other for one achingly long moment. Finally, she leaned in and rested her head upon his arm.

“If you die Stilinksi, I will go out of my freaking mind.”

  


	9. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing (especially if you all hate this ending...)

**EPILOGUE**

* * *

 

Tuscany was dry this time of year, but Stiles wasn’t complaining. He’d spent the majority of the last week wearing perpetually wet socks in Scotland, so dryness was his new best friend.

He was scanning the newsstand he was standing at for The Florentine and reached out when he spotted it. 

His hand trembled.

Frowning, he made a fist in an attempt to steady it. The tensing of muscles made the fine white lines (like the chaotic roots of a tree) stand out against his bare arm. He caught his breath and stared at them. A small pale hand, perfectly manicured and steady as a rock, slipped over his. He looked to his side at Lydia and smiled at her, letting her bright face reel him back in.

“I was going to surprise you with coffee and a magazine in bed. You’ve ruined it.”

She ignored this and squeezed his hand gently. “It was bad last night, wasn’t it?”

He sighed. “It’s better today, honestly.”

The neuropathy had its good days and it’s bad. Last night had been a bit brutal.

“Did Lorek have any suggestions?” she asked, paying for the magazine and tucking her arm around his as they meandered back to their hotel.

Stiles leaned down and kissed the top of her head. “No. Magic always has its price. A bit of pain and shaking isn’t so bad when you consider what it could have been.”

She often did, he knew.

“Anyway, it was good to catch up with him, but the very last thing I want to think about while on my honeymoon is another one of Lorek’s lectures. Believe me, I swear to god, even he fell asleep during one of them once!”

She laughed. “Well what is it you _do_ want to think about?”

He hummed while he considered his options.

“I’d settle for thinking about coffee, you, and breakfast in no particular order.”

 

**END**

  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that's all folks! Hope you enjoyed this. It just so happens to be the only story I've ever actually completed in my life, fanfiction or otherwise so I might be just a tad proud of myself.
> 
> I just want to thank all the people that commented while this was still in the works! Hopefully you like this ending. If not, c'est la vie.


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